A single sentence is enough
Iñaki Bastarrika Izagirre

Abstract

Let us imagine that a translator chooses one sentence, a single sentence, to translate and that he or she then translates it every day for forty years. There is one condition: the translator must read the sentence each day and, when translating it, must do so without looking at any of his or her previous translations. Something similar is carried out in the creative Japanese painting discipline of sumi-e, in which certain motifs, such as bamboo, are painted. Would this pictorial exercise be useful for translation?