The article analyzes the two Italian translations of <em>El matadero</em>, by Esteban Echeverría, specifically considering some examples of techniques used to transfer the cultural elements (<em>culturemas</em>) present in the source text (TF). These features are of utmost importance, not only because they are characteristic aspects of the Argentine culture of a particular epoch, but rather for their function in the textual framework constructed by the author. Therefore, some of the solutions proposed in both translations are examined, underlining the risks that translation between related languages impose, such as the abuse of copying and loans without any type of explanation, and the consequent danger of foreignization (Salmon, 2017), or the loss of illocutionary force in the target text (TM). In both translations, although to a different extent, faithfulness to the words of the TF does not allow the tension and violence that permeate the work to be fully transmitted. These characteristics could probably have been maintained in a less “tied” or more “daring” translation, based on the concept of translation as rewriting (Lefevere, 1992).
