In the summer of 1993, several poets and musicians, many of Alevi descent, were staying at the Madımak hotel in Sivas (Turkey) for a festival. One of the hotel guests was Aziz Nesin, a Turkish author who had controversially announced a translation of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, a book widely condemned for its alleged blasphemy. On July 2, a large crowd marched on the hotel after Friday prayers and set it on fire. Thirty-seven people were killed, and many others wounded. This article discusses the case of Nesin and his connection to what is known as the Sivas massacre. The study of this event seeks to examine the multilayered relationship between acts of intercultural mediation and outbursts of collective violence. The authors argue that this relationship can be clarified by drawing on the work of René Girard, whose writings on scapegoating and sacrificial violence survey the multifaceted interaction between human aggression and imitation. They introduce Girard’s work and consider the assumptions behind it in the light of previous work on translation, narrative and conflict. Against this theoretical background, our discussion of the Sivas massacre in relation to The Satanic Verses seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the role of agents of translation as potential catalysts as well as victims of collective violence.