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 truth is, just to hear other people speaking Italian is really worth it. It keeps the sound in your ear.

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

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 have very strict rules in my head that seem to me to be the way things should sound.

One naturally identifies to some extent with an "I" female narrator going through something that you recognize whether you've gone through it or not.

Primo Levi's - I mean, he's a very different kind of writer. He's a much more formal writer. He's a much more -almost detached. I mean, I wouldn't really say that he's detached ultimately. But he does write as a scientist, and so he describes things very - in great detail, very carefully.