The author suggests the threat of translation in colonial and postcolonial contexts is bound up with the question of origin. Translation is frequently presented in colonial contexts as either a predatory, exploitative activity or as the way to reconciliation, understanding and the withering aways of prejudice. Less account has been taken of translation as resistance - the ways in which originals can be manipulated, invented or substituted, or the status of the original subverted in order to frustrate the intelligence-gathering activities of the Imperial Agent. This is an unpopular perspective, as Translation Studies has a desire for consonant wholeness, a notion that saturates the metaphorical language of bridge-building that is frequently employed in the discipline. This makes it instructive to look at the status of the original in colonial situations, and see what implications this status has for translation practice and reception. The author therefore discusses the role of double agents in translation, resistance at the level of positional and at the level of text, the translator-nomad, the lack of historical awareness in translators, infrastructural dependency (relating to the production and distribution of translations) and the high-risk translation environment of postcolonial translations.