The present dissertation investigates the process of selecting, translating and publishing foreign literary works, with special focus on the publishing house Grupo Editorial Record, which thus represents the Brazilian publishing industry. The motivation for this study was the fact that, when buying a translated book, readers/consumers, in general, are not aware of the many stages which resulted in the product they are taking home. So this research focuses on the sequence of actions which usually unfold in the following order: the selection of the literary work to be translated and the subsequent acquisition of its copyright; the selection of the translator and the copy editor, agents who, respectively, translate the foreign text into the target language and improve the translated version; the choice of the cover and the title of the book already translated into the target language; the strategies for advertising and distributing the translated book; and lastly, the reception of this book by the literary critics and the average readership. The object of this study is thus the net of agents and activities which is promoted and articulated by the Brazilian publishing industry aiming at manufacturing a consumer good with features and purposes of its own, which are the translated literary works destined for leisure reading. Taking into account the expressive number of translated literary works published here, Brazil can be regarded as a translating culture. In contrast, hegemonic cultures such as the North American and the British ones, in general, translate less, that is, import fewer literary works for translation, being more translated instead, as they export their literary production more often. Concerning the theoretical framework here used as reference, my study is based on the following pillars: 1) the notion of literature as a polysystem, developed by Itamar Even-Zohar; 2) the understanding of translation as a phenomenon of the translating culture, by Gideon Toury; 3) the concepts of rewriting and patronage, proposed by André Lefevere; 4) the view of translation as the agent of national literature formation, promoted by Lawrence Venuti; 5) the sociologically-oriented approaches in their own right, whose prominent names are Michaela Wolf, Pascale Casanova, Daniel Simeoni, Maria Timoczko, Johan Heilbron, among others. Based on the selected bibliography and on the analysis of the data generated by the interviews carried out, it is possible to conclude that translation, traditionally and frequently examined under a linguistic viewpoint, can be also analysed under a market-driven perspective, being thus regarded as a commercial good produced to fulfill the demands of a niche of the entertainment industry. Hence, for triggering a wide range of tasks undertaken by professionals who work so as to make the product aimed at a specific group of consumers, it seems legitimate to infer that translation is a social practice, since it promotes the action of professionals not only those belonging to the publishing field, but, particularly, of text professionals such as translators.