The conditions in which the Cuban novel Tres tristes tigres (Cabrera Infante 1967) was translated into French, English and Dutch were very different, particularly as regards (1) the type of collaboration between the original author and the translators and (2) the publication dates of these translations. In this respect, the French and the US English translations are very similar: both Trois tristes tigres and Three Trapped Tigers were realized in collaboration with the author and both were published in the target cultures shortly after the original (1970 and 1971 respectively). The making of the Dutch translation, on the other hand, is very different: Drie trieste tijgers was published for the first time in 1997 (with a revision in 2002) and was realized without virtually any sort of collaboration between the author and the Dutch translators Fred de Vries and Tessa Zeiler. In the light of these data, it was expected that the collaboration between the author and the French and American translators (Albert Bensoussan and Suzanne Jill Levine respectively), as well as the proximity of the publication dates would affect the textual features of the translations. More precisely, it was expected that the French and US translations would be comparable and that these two would show substantial differences compared to the Dutch one. These initial assumptions were verified on the basis of three stylistic features, selected because they enforce decision-making processes on the translators: (a) intralingual speech variety, (b) (monolingual) language play and (c) intertextual irony. The initial assumption, though, was not corroborated. In fact, for two of the three categories analyzed, similarities were observed not between the US and French translations but between the US and Dutch translations. We will briefly exemplify these data and then explore clarifying factors beyond the two conditions privileged initially. These explanatory elements are organized in a framework that draws on two of Bourdieu’s key concepts (capital and ...