Literary translation in the Western world is a panorama of many shadows, some of which will be described in this paper: the status of the (literary) translator and the publishing situation. Holmes, however, also discusses the more positive evolutions in the field, such as the gradually rising esteem for literary translation and the polysystem theory which opens new horizons for Translation Studies. Eventually, Holmes concludes that there still remains a lot to be done to improve for instance the quality of translator training and the role of the translator in general.