Subjectively experienced as a privilege and a guarantee of independence, the translator's traditional solitude and their 'homeworker' status constitue a model for the present-day functioning of the publishing sector, with 40% of the personnel employed on a non-salaried temporary basis and paid in royalties. The propensity of translators to see their occupation as a 'vocation' transfigures their asceticism into a sign of election. Grouped into an association and not a union, they are split between full-time translators and academics who translate, which creates a hierarchy of access to the most noble literary heritage. But the exacerbation of this antagonism stems in the main form the fact that in many cases both groups have an elevated academic capital which is not associated with the same social profits, which must not be allowed to mask the fact the both share the same vocation not to 'make a name for oneself'.