Fictional texts as a means of communication have reflected the reality of societies and entertained mankind across centuries. Due to the need for crosscultural understanding, the fictional texts have been translated into other languages with different cultures and norms which have sometimes distorted the message and reflected the culture of the source text differently than the authors' intentions. One such problematic area that has attracted scholars from linguistics and translation is characterization in the novels; that is how characterization is built in the source text and how it is translated into the target text. Therefore, this study aims to 1) analyze the politeness strategy of the female protagonist, 2) the politeness strategy of the male antagonist 3) the translation techniques used in translating the politeness strategy of the female protagonist, 4) the translation techniques used in translating the politeness strategy of the male antagonist, 5 the translation quality of the politeness strategy used by both characters and 6) the impact of translation of politeness strategy on the characterization of the female protagonist and the male antagonist in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. This study employed a descriptive qualitative approach, and the study design is a single embedded case study. The focus of the research is on the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, and the source data are documents and informants. The document refers to the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, where the data is taken from the developmental stages of the story: orientation, complication, evaluation, and resolution. The informants were native speakers of the Indonesian language and experts in English-Indonesian translation who informed about the linguistic and translation data such as politeness strategies in the source text, translation techniques, translation shift, and translation quality through FGD. Hence, the informants played two roles: informants and raters. Two types of triangulations are used for data validation: data source and method triangulation. Then the data were analyzed based on Spradley’s data analysis including domain analysis, taxonomic analysis, componential analysis, and cultural theme analysis. The data analysis results indicate that 1) the female protagonist used four types of politeness strategies: bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off record. Likewise, 2) the male antagonist used four types of politeness strategies: bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off record. Both characters used either bald on record or positive politeness dominantly depending on the social context of power, distance, and rank of v imposition. 3) in terms of translation techniques, fifteen translation techniques are used for the female protagonist, and 4) sixteen translation techniques are used for the male antagonist. Speaking of translation quality, 5) the translation quality of the politeness strategies was good for both characters, the female protagonist and the male antagonist, but not perfect due to some inappropriate translation techniques. 6) in terms of characterization, the translator translated the characters’ politeness strategies well enough, yet some translation shifts brought about changes in the characterization of the two characters, the female protagonist and the male antagonist. This study concludes that the translation of politeness strategies of both characters was good, yet some translation techniques such as explicitation, modulation, discursive creation, pure borrowing, reduction, and transposition decreased the accuracy, acceptability, and readability of the translation quality.
