Translators and interpreters do not necessarily or merely function as institutional gatekeepers, echoing and strengthening the ‘voice of authority’. They also have a voice in their own right, which is not always seamlessly subsumed within the voices of primary interlocutors. Beyond illustrating the mechanics of how and why the translator’s voice can break through widespread illusion of transparency and univocality, the author explores the ideological motivations for assimilating the translator’s voice into that of the narrator in existing narratological models. The standard oppositions within which we locate translation (creative vs. reproductive, original vs. derivative, etc.) are cultural and ideological constructs that serve to maintain established hierarchies and safeguard the notion of univocal speech, to project an orderly universe populated by single voices issuing from distinct and identifiable sources. Translation is recognized as an activity that continually risks producing a proliferation of voices and meanings, and must therefore be controlled through the ideology of transparency and the suppression of the translator’s discursive presence.