The purpose of this dissertation is to stress the role of the paratext as a space of visibility for the translator. The study is based on the theoretical approach of Descriptive Translation Studies, emphasizing the concept of translation norms developed by Gideon Toury. From the study of norms, it is possible to understand and explain the translators’ behavior and the guidelines that govern their tasks, which makes the process of mediation as well as the agent of this mediation especially visible. According to Toury, translation norms may be reconstructed from two major sources: the translated texts themselves and the semi-theoretical and critical formulations made by translators, editors and publishers. From the second of these sources, a corpus comprised of translators’ prefaces, introductions and notes was selected. The analysis of the translators’ discourses aims at reconstructing the norms that govern their tasks. Lawrence Venuti has argued that the translator disappears behind a fluent text that erases the foreignness of the original text. Accordingly, he proposes an approach to translation that resists fluency, stylistic and idiomatic norms as a way of promoting the translators’ visibility. In contrast, the present study argues that it is in the paratext, rather than in the translated text itself, that the translator may become visible in society. This study seeks also to show that different cultures require different approaches and that theories developed in a particular system should not be applied to other systems without the proper adjustments to their specific contexts.