This chapter uses interviews with two contemporary Slovene writers to examine institutional and non-institutional routes into English translation. It argues that the accumulation of studies that highlight the unequal nature of translation exchanges is essential both to rebalance and revise theoretical models developed on the basis of more ‘dominant’ literatures and to reach more complex definitions of what constitute ‘small’ literatures. The chapter questions the emphasis on target-culture-oriented theory, which in the context of Slovene and other smaller literatures leads domestically and internationally to a focus on the role of literary translation into the smaller language on identity formation. The chapter highlights the exceptional number of cultural institutions established to promote Slovene literature in translation, and traces the history of this effort in the context of both the nineteenth-century Slovene national awakening under the Habsburgs and the emergence of the first independent Slovenia in the 1990s. It notes both the predominantly cultural-diplomatic motivation for state funding, and the subtle presence of a national narrative underpinning these efforts.