This issue of the journal Laboratoire italien questions the idea of "political translation". Based on a long experience of translation, it examines the assumptions, foundations and terms of realization of this experience. The question is therefore divided in two: how and why do we translate? To answer the question “how to translate?”, translators explain what act they performed by translating a particular text. Other articles answer the question “why to translate?” by reconstructing the process that led to the decision and the realization of a particular translation, by some translator or some publishing house, in a remote or recent past.