This paper examines the procedures that are followed for the translation of novel metaphors in newspaper texts. For this purpose, the authors compare 122 English newspaper articles published in The Guardian and their Spanish translations published by El Mundo del Siglo XXI. Novel metaphors have a figurative component as well as multiple linguistic realizations. Besides having an undetermined length, these metaphors are not institutionalized or standardized. Results show that novel metaphors prevail in the source texts whereas dead (conventional) metaphors are much more numerous than novel metaphors both in the source and target texts. Quite often some components of the novel metaphors are omitted in the target texts owing to the fact that they do not have a counterpart, they may be difficult to translate or simply because they are not relevant for the translator (e.g. Ghosts of Bolshevik past march again vs. Los fantasmas del pasado vuelven a desfilar en Rusia).