This paper analyses Stanisław Barańczak’s translation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel A Wizard of Earthsea. An overview of the first publications of the American writer in Poland is followed by a description of the obstacles that were encountered by Stanisław Lem when trying to publish Le Guin’s novel in the book series that he directed. Subsequently, Stanisław Barańczak’s translation is analysed to show the strategies that he adopted, the recurring techniques, and the problematic renderings due to a lack of familiarity with the fantasy genre.

The paper aims at analyzing the practice on the borderline of retranslation and revision carried out by translators who rework their own previous translations. The comparison between the three Italian editions (1999, 2013, 2020) of Olga Tokarczuk’s Prawiek i inne czasy shows how the same translator gradually moved towards a more foreignizing approach, fixings errors and modernizing the language, though not eschewing a domesticating strategy. These re-editions seem to be linked with the growing symbolic capital and contractual power of the writer on the international arena, which arouse the need of more accurate translations and reinterpretations of her works.