The aim of this article is to highlight the creative potential that pseudo-translations and fictitious translators can bring to the work of a writer, as well as the contribution they can make to the development of a literature, all the more so when this writer belongs to a minority literature that does not have a long, abundant literary tradition. By means of examples extracted from the work of Basque writer and translator Joseba Sarrionandia, who often tries to create the illusion that a text written by him is a translation of a foreign work or that one of his translations was found or translated by a fictitious character, we will attempt to demonstrate how these norm-transgressing literary practices, which oscillate between translation and literary creation, question some traditional concepts and definitions, such as the source text’s originality, an author’s exclusive possession of a text, the translator’s invisibility or the authenticity and purity of languages and literatures.