This article is the result of research carried out at the archives of the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation. The author's aim is to describe and analyse how the fascist dictatorship affected the Italian cultural environment in the fascist Ventennio and in particular the literature published in that period in Italy. The documents found in the Mondadori archive – both official instructions and private letters – revealed a surprising scenario, where fascist censorship was not so strict as expected and publishers did not surrender themselves to it, but on the contrary developed their own strategies to face it. In this context, translators – a new figure in the Italian literary panorama – played an extremely important and original role, as they were forced into their professional duties, publishers’ needs and the government’s censorship.