This paper has two aims. The first is, by drawing attention to the wide variety of critical texts published in literary magazines between 1935 and 1945, to display that these critical texts, on the grounds of their substantial content and textual structure, are incompatible with scholarly definition of the concepts such as translation criticism, review or publicity. For this reason, this paper suggests identifying these texts more inclusively as “critical texts on translation”. The second aim of the paper is to problematize two grand ‘translation debates’ that have remarkable features with regard to concepts of originality, authorship, translation, plagiarism and adaptation along with the criticisms’ impact on the target culture. This paper concludes that critical texts on translation can cause large-scale discussions and inquiries within the target culture and that many writers and intellectuals adopted a problematizing and critical attitude in the face of borderline translation activities such as concealed translation or adaptation.