Fiction editor : an ambiguous profession

As a former fiction editor within the translation section of an important publisher, the author of this paper analyses, a posteriori, various aspects of the status of this profession. The main features of the role of editors are their considerable power and reduced responsibility. Editors do not sign the final text of a translation; however, they are active collaborators in the translation process. An editor is a reviewer, a partner, a censor at times, or even an alter ego of the translator, not to say a ‘ghost writer’. This is why the profession of editor epitomizes the collaborative dimension of translation