The author draws on narrative theory in an attempt to outline a theoretical approach to studying translation and interpreting that gives as much attention to the mainstream as it does to the marginal, to the workings of the system as well as the many acts of resistance against it, and that avoids that streamlining effect of dichotomies by acknowledging that the positioning of individual translators in relation to their texts, authors, societies and dominant ideologies is negotiated at every juncture, and can vary not only across texts but even within the same text. She starts outlining some of the strengths of the narrative approach, compared with current popular approaches and against the backdrop of widespread political conflict at this moment in history. Among other advantages, narrative theory allows us to consider the immediate narrative elaborated in the text being translated or interpreted and the larger narratives in which the text is embedded, and this in turn allows us to see translational choices not merely as local linguistic challenges but as contributing directly to the narratives that shape our world. Every choice is considered – at least potentially – as a kind of index that activates a narrative, a story of what the world or some aspect of the world is like.