Working with a Canadian-Quebec corpus of essays translated from English to French and French to English, this article shows that rhythm can play just as important role in prose as it does in poetry. Examples demonstrate that failure to understand such rhythmic effects during the translation process of essays can reduce the coherence and communicative function of the target text. Difficulties in translating rhythm in essays seem not to reflect linguistic impediments or generic differences in the essay form, but rather an undervaluing of rhythm as a rhetorical component and the extent to which rhythm is profoundly embedded in the text. To remedy this situation, the article explores the usefulness, in translation process and pedagogy terms, of integrating an analysis of rhythmic effects to the overall representation of textual coherence, through the concept of ‘voice.’