Prefaces and afterwords constitute an arena which provides the opportunity for literary translators to comment on their translations. Such comments are the focus of this contribution, in which they are studied from three different perspectives. Firstly, an overview is given of the occurrence of these comments in contemporary translated Swedish literature. Secondly, a number of comments are studied in detail from the perspectives of the role theory and Bourdieu’s cultural sociology. Thirdly, three interviews with publishers are presented. These interviews shed light on the conditions for the writing of such comments from the perspective of the most obvious power-holders in the field. It is shown that the boundaries for these comments on the translation by literary translators in contemporary Sweden are narrow in several respects.