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.

It's one of the hardest things to translate anything that's not standard.

I always hesitate to say that something is lifelike.

Trying to take a feeling from one language, and express it in another is naturally that's my goal. You can't possibly achieve that in a perfect way because there's so many things you have to take into consideration. You know, think about every word, every sentence, every paragraph, and do what you can.

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.

I think it's important to be accurate on the level of the word, but it's also important to be accurate at the level of the sentence, at the level of the paragraph. Sometimes you lose sight of that - I remind myself to go back and read.