1984 saw the release one of the most debated works in contemporary Spanish literature: Larva.Babel de una noche de San Juan, the first novel written by Julián Ríos. Refusing to be read in aclassic and linear manner, including more than 30 plays-on-words per page and 20 languagesbesides Spanish, this roman à tiroirs seems to break many linguistic, literary and discursive codes.It also displays close links with translation as it constantly moves from one language to another.Our project will be the first systematic study to investigate translation as a literary concept and atechnique in the composition of (original) multilingual novels. By taking Larva as an indicative caseof the relations between translation and literature, we will describe the encompassing role oftranslation as a compositional procedure and a conceptual device, from Larva’s main narrativestructures to the verbal creations and rhetorical processes. This project entails a top-downapproach based on the elaboration of a poetics of translation as a driving force revealing Larva’swriting and reading operations. In a second phase, we will investigate Larva’s translations inFrench in which Ríos collaborated, from a comparative and textual perspective. We willdemonstrate how effective translations, as generative writing practices, are parts of a globalliterary project that seeks to redefine the limits of the (original) novel by expanding it towardsother linguistic systems.