Translators are, in a way, invisible. The modern attitude is that literary translations should be as target language oriented as possible, not quite localised, but enough so that they read like they were written in the target language. Some publishers allow a little foreign flavour, the occasional expression left untranslated, as in, for example Pierre Magnan's The Murdered House that I reviewed some time ago. This emphasis on the invisibility of the translators has, inevitably, led to the profession being not only underappreciated, but underpaid as well. The above link leads to an article that investigates this phenomenon.
This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove...
Comments
Translation is constant decision-making, and much more complicated than non-translators could ever imagine, which is why it's sad that it's such a thankless job. This is why I always comment on the translation and give the translator's name when I review translated books.