This edited volume constitutes a collection of essays in English and French highlighting the trials and tribulations of the translation of Chinese into European languages, mapping the diversity of the idioms and the personalities involved in this complex process during the last three centuries. Variations on the proximity or distance between the translator and the original text, of his own imprint and times, the chosen genre and of course the target and intermediary languages. By reviewing a sample of literary, philosophical and scientific texts, this volume illustrates what is really and phantasmagorically at stake in the relations between China and Europe. Rather than presenting confrontations, the essays aim to deepen mutual understanding through investigations into the multilayered process of translation.