This paper analyses the role of the translator in the representation of alterity and the construction of national identity, with reference to the work of a nineteenth-century Egyptian translator, essayist and educationalist, Rifā'a Rāfi' al-TahTāw (1801-1874). The essay takhlS al-ibrz f talkhS bārs ('The Extraction of Gold in the Summarizing of Paris') includes numerous examples of constructive translation and representation, which familiarised and legitimised the 'other' through the identification of parallels, common values and experience. Al-TahTāw negotiated between conflicting discourses of modernism and traditionalism, and it is argued that the issues of representation raised in his work are of particular relevance to contemporary concerns in the geo-political arena.