This study examined the strategies adopted by six translators in the translation of
the cultural markers from English to Persian in The Alchemist, a novel by Paulo
Coelho (1992). The study aimed to identify the strategies that the translators have
adopted in rendering the cultural markers in the Persian translation of the novel, as
well as to analyze to what extent the translators have been observant of the
receiving culture. The Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) theories underlie the
study. Data of the study comprise words and compounds extracted from a corpus
of six different Persian translations of the English novel based on a database and
search tool designed for this purpose. The classification of cultural markers
proposed by Newmark (1988) was used as a basis for searching and extracting the
cultural markers from the source text. A total number of256,342 words constitute
the corpus, from which 39,483 words are in English and 216,845 words are in
Persian. The identified translated words and compounds were then analyzed to
fmd out how the translators dealt with cultural markers and to determine the
strategies adopted by them in translating the sensitive cultural concepts and
phenomena. The analysis of the data revealed that certain concepts such as
religious names, traditions and rituals are lost in the translated texts, which is
attributed to the cultural differences and religious beliefs of the translators and
their preferences for the receiving culture. The comparison of the translated data
also revealed that Persian translators could have intentionally or unintentionally
omitted or changed certain concepts and meanings due to cultural, religious and
translatability issues. These changes considered both as translation mistakes
and/or translators' intentions to avoid the religious and morality issues in the
receiving culture
