What role did translation of fiction and drama play in Teodor Kasap’s periodicals? How were translated texts received, used, and discussed? Most studies consider translations as disconnected from the environment in which they appeared. By contrast, I propose to study them as part of the entity constituted by the periodic press. My aim in this paper is to frame Kasap’s translations and interest with translation within a larger framework of late Ottoman translation. Departing from Micromégas and translated dramatic texts, I will provide a novel perspective on the late Ottoman public sphere, the way it worked, and not least, the role and function of translation within it. Diyojen, Ç?ng?rakl? Tatar, and Hayal, the satirical periodicals edited by Teodor Kasap in the 1870s, are among the most interesting publications at the time. As Madeleine Elfenbein (2017) convincingly argues, Kasap’s vision was Ottomanist. He aimed at gathering all Ottoman subjects, independent of religious, ethnic and cultural background. His main device was the press, and his periodicals are extremely rich sources: Kasap draws on the manifold and multilingual Ottoman print culture in order to propagate for his ideas. However, the way in which his translations contributed to shaping the public sphere remains understudied. Voltaire’s science fiction novella Micromégas started to appear in Ottoman translation in Diyojen in October 1871. The translator was Teodor Kasap himself. In the foreword to the translation, he praises Voltaire’s fearlessness faced with state authorities, and emphasizes his criticism of power, oppression, as well as his illustrious strength of mind. Ottoman society needed these insights, according to Kasap. Micromégas is not the only example of translation in Kasap’s publications: His interest with French drama, and their Ottoman translations, is of major significance in both Diyojen, Ç?ng?rakl? Tatar, and later Hayal. My paper cuts across social history, intellectual history, and literary studies: I investigate how the circulation of cultural products raised debates about language, society and identity. Kasap’s translation endeavors serve as brilliant examples. Late Ottoman writers, journalists, and readers strived to carve out an intellectual space able to house the rapidly changing cultural, social, and political circumstances. Translated fiction became parts of ongoing debates; they contributed to launch them, being both enriching, challenging, and in some cases even limiting.