Any given translation constitutes an independent text with an aim or function in the TL. Thus, when translating, the intended effect of a work must be taken into account, in order to reproduce it in the TL and TC as far as possible. […] A fairly long text (a novel) is not closed: there are valleys and peaks in it. Therefore, there are always unrealized potentialities. When translating, the development of these potentialities in compensations for losses occurring in other parts of the text during the translational process, i.e. to apply a holistic, compensatory strategy allows the re-creation of the original text in the TL. The resultant product will never be the same but it will be equivalent. The appropriateness (maybe need) of compensation when translating is what I will try to show throughout this paper, taking into consideration the pragmatic suggestions of figures from the field of translation theory, such as Vermeer, De Beaugrande, Steiner or Newmark, among others.