This chapter examines the theoretical frameworks for discussing the literatures of ‘small’ nations, arguing that there is a need for alternative modes of analysis that move away from a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model of the communications network and allow for a fuller revelation of the complexities of the processes by which translations do – or indeed do not – come to be published. The theoretical approach is based in sociological and cultural studies approaches to questions of gender, colonialism and power, querying how decolonial thinking may inform the understanding of the relationships between the de facto ‘centre’ of the English-speaking literary marketplace and enable to hear the alternative voices and alternative ways of reading that are present in the so-called margins of Europe. The chapter presents as case studies a number of Portuguese texts, which are used to demonstrate the multiplicity of narratives present under the visible surface of the network: canonical male authors (José Saramago, Jorge de Sena, Luís de Sttau Monteiro) are placed alongside anti-canonical female authors such as the ‘Three Marias’ to reveal the gendered and colonialist dynamics of power and discrimination inherent in the publishing and translation industries, and in the theoretical frameworks available to scholars.