The increasing popularity of online literary translations, performed by both humans and machines, demands a place in mainstream discussions about the future of literary production and circulation. Responding to this necessity, this article examines the extraordinary case of the viral translations of Refaat Alareer's poem "If I Must Die", which amassed hundreds of renditions in over a hundred languages on Twitter within days of the poet's killing. While recognizing this as an unparalleled situation, triggered by Israel's assault on Gaza, I examine how factors such as the choices of English as the language of composition and the internet as the medium of dissemination have contributed to the poem's widespread circulation through the hands of an unconventional set of translators. Through a discursive analysis, this article explores the risks and potential benefits of leveraging the factors that facilitated these translations to cater to the urgency of what I call "resistance translations."
