I don't have a philosophy. If I had a philosophy, it's that I'm kind of literal minded. For example, I would never translate poetry - it's too hard, there are too many levels. Not that prose doesn't have many levels, but it's more grounded.

To have the translator be a figure in the book's presentation seems like a big thing, especially for a book that's really popular.

I think that physical actions are always hard to describe, to translate.

I think that if you are sticking to the text, essentially, you're not trying to write your own version of it. I mean, of course, it is your own version of it. And every translator would probably have a different version. But I think that that's what keeps the writers from being individual in English. They may be my English, but I don't think that Ferrante sounds like Levi.

The Neapolitan novels have a lot of references to things outside, to things of the world, to culture, politics, the city of Naples. People have mentioned that Naples is like a character in the novels.

As the writer, you can choose the word that seems best in terms of meaning, nuance, sound, etc. As the translator you are unlikely to find a word in your language that exactly matches, so that you are always making a decision about which meaning or nuance to choose, or emphasize, over the others.

That's a huge subject - a writer refusing to do publicity but writing about publicity.