ABSTRACT
This essay arose as a form of praxis, in Paulo Freire’s (1972) sense of mindful reflection on professional practice. After completing the work of translating Polish writer Wiesław Myśliwski’s 1984 novel Kamień na kamieniu (Stone upon Stone), I found myself curious about the kinds of small- and large-scale dilemmas and decisions that had led to the text taking the shape it did. What follows, then, is not an account of the process itself so much as a post factum discussion. I’d call it an analysis, except that analysis involves breaking things down, while what I’m trying to do here is precisely the opposite—taking a large number of small instances and seeing what they add up to.
