Lönker attempts to pinpoint the meaning of the concept 'foreign' and to explain the relevance of this undertaking for literary translation. He first explores the differences between 'foreigness' and 'alterity' as well as the implications of the relations that are often established between 'foreign' and 'familiar'. He then gives two examples of extreme kinds of foreigness, taken from German translations of Henry James' Daisy Miller and from English translations of Robert Musil's Vollendung der Liebe. Lönker concludes by pointing out how these extremes influence the translator and his or her translation.