從1950年代到1990年代，臺灣透過日文轉譯了超過一千種的兒童文學，原文包括英文、法文、德文、義大利文、西班牙文、俄文及其他語言。但作為轉譯來源的日文譯者名字極少出現在臺灣出版品的版權頁上。此長達四十多年的未授權轉譯活動，有其複雜的歷史和政治因素。臺灣自1896年至1945年為日本殖民地，受過日文教育的一代臺灣人，在戰後才開始學習以北方方言為基礎的國語，許多人的日文程度優於國語和現代中文。但戰後來台的國民黨政府視日文為「奴化語言」，極力「去日本化、再中國化」。受過日文教育的一代臺灣人在習得足夠的國語之後，開始把他們熟悉的日文翻譯成中文，形成特殊的轉譯現象。本論文描述臺灣在1992年版權法施行之前，出版社大量透過日文轉譯世界兒童文學的現象。這些受過日文教育的譯者，運用他們在殖民時期獲得的語言能力大量轉譯兒童讀物，實與政府「去日本化」的政策背道而馳，也促成今日臺灣的文化雜揉現狀：儘管以中文為主要語言，但在文化上卻不曾遠離日本。

From the 1950s to 1990s, Taiwan published more than one thousand translated children’s books that were indirect translations via Japanese rather than from their source languages, be them English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, or others. However, almost none of the translators into Japanese were mentioned on the copyright pages of these books. This four-decade long unauthorized mass translation practice occurred as the result of myriad historical and political factors. Being a former colony of Japan from 1896 to 1945, Taiwan witnessed a generation educated in the language of the colonizer and subsequently better versed in Japanese than the Chinese language of the new post-war regime, despite most ancestors of the Taiwanese having originated in China. However, the new regime regarded the Japanese language as both stigma and threat, and put great effort into uprooting Japan’s influence in Taiwan. This paper aims to describe the practice of “underground” indirect translation and argues that these Japanese-educated translators used their Japanese, an accidental heritage, to compromise the “uprooting Japan” program carried out by their new rulers.