M.A. / Hermann Hesse is one of the most widely read and translated German authors of our time. The potential problems for the translator posed by the time gap between the original publication of the source text and a contemporary Afrikaans translation is illustrated by means of an analysis and periodisation of some of his fairy tales. Hesse's fairytales were mainly written during the first quarter of the twentieth century and are in many ways representative of the spirit of the times. The radical changes and developments in a modern age touched all aspects of society and its influence on the corresponding German literary movement of the time, the expressionism, is best summarised by the motto: "Change, renewal and intensification" (Best, 1978:11). The diverse literary styles of this movement can be attributed to the different ways writers responded to these changes. Whereas some writers wanted to bring about change by means of ecstatic destruction, others like Hesse had a more moderate view that change could be brought about by means of an inner process. Alienation was another popular expressionist theme. Hesse did not restrict its use to theme only, but applied it as an alienation technique by using historical romanticism in a modern context. Knowledge of genre, hermeneutics, structuralism, formalism and stylistics is a useful tool for the analysis of the fairytales. An analysis of the potential post modern Afrikaans target reader's philosophy of life will further aid the translator in bridging the gap between source and target cultures. In response to the language crisis at the beginning of the twentieth century, Hesse applied a number of non-verbal style techniques. The musical nature of his prose can be seen as an expressive way of dealing with this problem. His narrative style shows influences of modernism in the way he experiments with perspective and focus in order to distinguish between inner and outer world. Change of focus and perspective often goes hand in hand with a change in register. Hesse's use of archetypes and symbols reflects expressionist bias towards abstraction as does his use of irony as an alienation technique. André Lefevere's emphasis on the importance of the ideology, poetics, frame of reference and language (in this sequence) of the target audience, is illustrated and discussed by means of a comparison of selected source text examples with English and Afrikaans translations. These methods of analysis for the fairytales are then applied to the Afrikaans translation of "Piktors Verwandlungen" and "Der Europäer".