The study of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) has grown considerably in the last decades, and a wide number of issues related to this field have been addressed through a variety of lenses. These range from the changes occurring in spoken English, to the much-debated notion of the native-speaker; from the threat that English represents for minority languages, to the metadiscourse(s) contributing to the myth of English as a language equally accessible to speakers of all nationalities.

Adopting different perspectives and positions, the articles in this special issue of The Interpreter and Translator Trainer all demonstrate that ELF poses many challenges to the teaching of translation and that, while there are no simple and ready-made solutions, such challenges need to be taken on board to fill the current gap between translation pedagogy and translation practice. The volume is intended as a starting point to encourage educators to rethink their approach to translation pedagogy by envisaging tools and practices that can contribute to preparing students to become professional translators of ELF and reflective practitioners who are aware of the centrality of translation in the digital age.

This is the first extended treatment of the English translations, stagings, and reception of the political plays of Dario Fo and Franca Rame. Focusing on the United Kingdom and the United States, Stefania Taviano offers a critique of the cultural stereotyping and political conservatism that have pursued these playwrights in translation and argues for the possibility of remaining true to Fo and Rame's political commitment while preserving the comic nature of their plays. Taviano shows how the choices made by the translators and stagers of Fo and Rame's political theatre reveal attitudes toward foreign cultures and theatre generally and Italy in particular. Among the questions she poses are 'What characterizes the process of acculturation that takes place when political theatre is transposed from one culture to another?' 'To what extent are images of foreign literary production affected by dominant translation practices and theatre traditions?' Perhaps most important, 'What constitutes political theatre in a given society, and how are such definitions used to categorize and contain theatre texts that are disturbing, challenging, and difficult to stage?' Her book concludes with an investigation of the meaning of Fo and Rame's political theatre today that points the way for future critical studies of the politics behind the translation and stage production of political theatre outside its culture of origin.

This is the first extended treatment of the English translations, stagings, and reception of the political plays of Dario Fo and Franca Rame. Focusing on the United Kingdom and the United States, Stefania Taviano offers a critique of the cultural stereotyping and political conservatism that have pursued these playwrights in translation and argues for the possibility of remaining true to Fo and Rame's political commitment while preserving the comic nature of their plays. Taviano shows how the choices made by the translators and stagers of Fo and Rame's political theatre reveal attitudes toward foreign cultures and theatre generally and Italy in particular. Among the questions she poses are 'What characterizes the process of acculturation that takes place when political theatre is transposed from one culture to another?' 'To what extent are images of foreign literary production affected by dominant translation practices and theatre traditions?' Perhaps most important, 'What constitutes political theatre in a given society, and how are such definitions used to categorize and contain theatre texts that are disturbing, challenging, and difficult to stage?' Her book concludes with an investigation of the meaning of Fo and Rame's political theatre today that points the way for future critical studies of the politics behind the translation and stage production of political theatre outside its culture of origin.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Dario Fo is one of the world's most important contemporary playwrights, forging subversive wit and unusual linguistic experimentation into a comedy of complete originality. The Peasants' Bible is a collection of five monologues drawn from Italian folklore but filtered through Fo's delightfully singular lens-for example, an Adam and Eve who are passionately entwined like peas in a pod; a race between two classes of men struggling for power that resembles the legend of the Hare and the Tortoise-to form a Bible of the common man. In The Story of the Tiger, we find a Fourth Army soldier injured fighting Chiang Kai-shek's army, saved from starvation by being suckled by an enormous tiger, who then comes back to defeat Kai-shek by using model tigers in combat. Together the pieces are an extraordinary addition to Fo's body of work.