This paper examines decisions taken in the translation of fiction, especially short stories, beginning with the translation of Mario Vargas Llosa's short story, The Cubs, on which the author himself collaborated. The author then moves on to the translations by the Brazilian author Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro of his own novels, in which he decided not to use footnotes or provide any kind of explicatory text, emphasizing the experience of 'pleasure of the text'. This 'thin' translation is contrasted with the 'thick' translation recommended by Kwame Anthony Appiah. The syntax and vocabulary of this kind of translation attempts to reflect that of the original and it is surrounded by the paratexts of footnotes and preface or postface and glossary. The author then examines translations from the bhasha languages of South India, where the editors set out a very definite translation project, which is in favour of a foreignizing translation, which will bring the Indian Other to the reader.