Davis’ most enduring relationship as a translator is with Maurice Blanchot. She began publishing her translation of Death Sentence in 1975 in the magazine Living Hand, which Davis and her then husband Paul Auster edited. Over the next eighteen years, Davis translated six books of Blanchot's: L'Arrêt de mort (1977, first published 1948) as Death Sentence (1978), Au moment voulu (1951) as When the Time Comes (1985), Celui qui m'accompagnait pas (1953) as The One Who Was Standing Apart from Me (1993), Le dernier homme (1957) as The Last Man (1987), La folie du jour (2002, first published 1973) as ‘The Madness of the Day’ (1977) and The Gaze of Orpheus and other literary essays (1981). The first four of these are novella-length texts, called ‘récits’ by Blanchot. The fifth, ‘The Madness of the Day’, is a short text that was published separately as a book in 1981, despite only being nine full pages in length in its 1977 English magazine publication and the same when it was reprinted in The Station Hill Blanchot Reader (Blanchot 1999: 191–9). Davis’ other translation, The Gaze of Orpheus and other literary essays (Blanchot 1981b), was the first English collection of Blanchot's critical essays. It contains work from Blanchot's collections Faux pas (1943), La Part du feu (1949), L'Espace littéraire (1955), Le Livre à venir (1959) and L'Entretien infini (1969). It appeared just before two other translations of Blanchot's essays (Blanchot 1982a and 1982b).

Davis has stated how important translating Blanchot was for her as a translator. While translating him she ‘learned to stay extremely close to the text … practising an extreme fidelity’ (Davis 2007b: 7). She published early versions of her translations in magazines (Blanchot 1975, 1976, 1977) which, with the exception of Michel Leiris’ work, is something she has not done with her other translations, although it mirrors her practice with her own short stories. These early publications increased her visibility as a translator and helped to establish her reputation.