The book offers a reflection on literary translation as a fundamental means of cross-literary and cross-cultural communication as well as a major vehicle in the development of national literatures, especially small ones, such as Slovene literature. On the basis of case studies of selected Italian literary works in Slovene translation and of Slovene literary texts in Italian translation, the author shows that translation is never a neutral process, but an interpretative act embedded in a given historical context, which conditions the translator’s decisions and the reception of the translated text by the target audience.