When and how did you get into this translation issue? What need was there then?

He was teaching language and literature classes at St. Thomas Lyceum. [Jesús Mari] We gave literature with this Lasagabaster scheme, with that minimum of always: three deadlines; Garoa [Txomin Agirre], the hidden diary of Leturia [Txillardegi] and because it begins daily [Ramón Saizarbitoria]. The reading of the fern was hard then, and today I think it's almost impossible, but I suggested it as a special exercise, for example, picking up the lexicon by chapters, anticipating the problem. Then, with Leturia, you could do something informative about existentialism, which also comes very well at that age, always with a little care, the syndrome of not burdening people. The Saizarbitoria game, for its part, gave a very nice game, with that modernism and with all the techniques that are used. I mean, I would still be happy to give literature classes with these three classes...

But ...

But there was little material, that's clear. And one day -- that picture has stuck with me -- a student came to me, I still remember what, and he told me that I had already read all the ones I recommended to them, but I wanted others, and he taught me Michael Ende's never-ending story. Yes, I wanted those things too. At this point, it was that there was no big deal. And that I, too, had to cultivate language, because one thing is that there is not much, and another is that everyone also has their reach.

Remember your first order?

Walking around Andu [Lertxundi] I did some small things, for example, I translated a little book for children, from Catalan. It was a simple but nice thing, because it looked like traditional stories and gave the opportunity to get into the bertsos.

The first big assignment they gave him was this: Translate to Basque the Amanuense Bartleby from Herman Melville.

That was also proposed to me by Anduk, and by then there was Inazio Mujika [Iraola] in Erein. They wanted to do the Bartleby series and, of course, the first number had to be Bartleby – by the way, all the books in that series were lost in the worst floods. I remember that Anduk told me with a lot of mystery [Koldo] Mitxelena that she had been trying to translate it and that the first sentence could not be given in Euskera. I made a mess with that.

Was there anything mysterious in that first sentence?

I didn't know the book in advance, I've been very helpful in reading, however amateur it may be. I took Bartleby and, look, the first sentence did not seem problematic, but later: even before I gave the yes, I saw that the problem was not at the beginning, but that phrase that Bartleby repeated over and over again and that has moved on to my common heritage, especially among bureaucrats: I would rather not [I would rather not to]. Give me that to make me feel at ease... there's the question. I finally did, and people liked it. In any case, for me, translation has always been a kind of respite.

One said that the pleasure of writing is to return, without the torment of creating.

That's it. A part of creation is torment, not fable itself, but then writing: you have doubts, you don't know if it's great or it's insignificant. Translation is a challenge, I did it as others do crosswords. You do not doubt the original, you know it is good, so it is a matter of putting it in Basque: it is a technical problem. You do it at ease because you're talking about good literature, and at that time you read that text like nobody else: you live with the writer, abstracted from the world. By the way, it's working writing as if it wasn't something that I wouldn't have done naturally, because in the natural world, you're always looking for a less resilient line.

Last year Bartleby was republished in the 4nak collection of Erein. Has the text grown very old?

When we started, there was not a Unified Dictionary. Things were not so united, some things essential from the standardisation point of view were not established. Then, when it's done, people have complained, but there were conditions that were necessary, and now there's a standard, which is being completed, that we're doing with each other.

It's been 25 years since I first published Bartleby, and when I was asked to go through it, I thought I would have to look a little bit at the dictionary. But it wasn't just that. I had to look at which structures were used, and so on. We have learned at this level: the texts are better, there is explicit and implicit theorization.

On the other hand, it has to be said that at that time the game was more beautiful, especially in creativity. I would no longer dare to work in the dictionary with the same freedom that I wrote the shadow of Itzal… Being without doing had some advantages.

What does a good translator need?

The first condition, and perhaps the last one, is a universal curiosity, a pathological curiosity. The translator should be interested in everything, in all aspects of language, and should love reading. Faulkner said that it should be read, even if it is pharmaceutical prospectuses. It's not about knowing, because after all, general culture and scholarship can't be absolute, by definition; it's about jumping, as journalists say, because you don't know what you're going to do. Of course, I am referring above all to literary translation; in the case of the translators of the administration, these are other conditions. They must have patience and despair.

By saying that I am a translator, people ask me how many languages I know, but in practice I have learned that the language has to be worked more than the original.

When they say to me, “You will speak English!”, I usually say that to provoke me I am not able to go beyond a normal conversation. They're different things. What you have said is the experience of everything you have done. The problems of the original can be solved with the documentation. If the writer is alive, you can ask him or another native, and if he's dead and it's something, there's a critical device, let's not say if he's translating Shakespeare: 100 books on each line.

As in most things, you have to have intuition, intuition and know what literature is, what gender is, and what the writer is doing. If it's a story, you have to know what a story is, and if you see something that you don't seek meaning, don't despair what the dictionary says. Then all of that can be compensated over time. That has happened to me: the less I know the language, the more time I have devoted to work, and that is nothing wrong. Borges also said that he had learned German by translating it. I belong to that school, I have not learned German and I begin to translate it, but I have made progress.

You mentioned to me a first curious example, on this matter…

Yes, there is a translator in the United States, who is famous for some poetic translations from German: the awards they gave him, the applause of the critics... Years later, he translated an anthology of Chinese poems, and one of the critics said it was obvious that the translator did not know the original language. The translator then said he did not even know German.

In the end, if you are translating the literature, you should give the client a text that you like to read and that is interesting to them. If he is happy, you have done your duty. If you've changed something, maybe you've improved. What is a literary text published for? To use it, isn't it? Then, of course, we have to maintain fidelity as far as possible, but the key is that other.

Therefore, to give a text that works in the target language, how should the translator work his/her own language and the text itself?

You have to technically work your language, do gymnastics, study how things can be said. In the case of the Basque Country you have to do all that especially, as you will have to change a lot. You have to have the store well full and a fairly wide repertoire so you enjoy it later, and all that you have to do before it starts to translate it, you can't go back, suddenly you start to document or read Axular. You have to know the original language, yes, but you have to have yours open, flexible and present. Because it's not about knowing, it's about reaching out, even when the bond is not obvious.

This other kind of schizophrenia is a last special ability: first, you have to get into the topic of translation, take out the tents and know it, understand it better than the one who wrote it, and then you have to completely forget it and do it as if it didn't exist.

In recent years he has taught courses for formal text writers (translators, teachers…). I am amazed at how hard it is to write a natural and legible text to many people who develop perfectly in Basque.

They're two capacities. Those who do not have the oral base cannot write well, but here they are mystified. It all comes from there, of course, because some people have the opposite problem, they think that language was born in writing, and then sometimes it is pronounced. That too has to be removed from the head. Writing is artificial, Plato himself said it was not worth writing without life. That is why more work needs to be done, because it is a technique and it has its own logic.

That the oral or the written must move closer? No doubt. I do not think they have to move further away, but the speeches themselves are different.

But can't you use the oral as a starting point?

I will say something else: writing, writing well and working hard is a hindrance to the voice. A little bit more -- when magnetophon was invented, our memory was lost a lot, right? The same is true. As semi-illiterate farmers appear on television, they are the best speakers: That's talking! When you don't know anything else, you have to fix them with him. That's your whole world. In that sense, we are condemned, but what other option is to put the paper aside? All languages have changed, and they've become stiffened and schematized as we move on to writing.

It has happened to many people who resist the most oral and do not want to listen to the writing, who wanted to write about a technical subject, and who have not been able, despite knowing the subject well. And so what is the unified Basque of that Basque? Spanish.