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

I like to think of the individual words, then you put the word in the sentence, then you have to think about what that word means in the sentence, then you have to read the sentence in the paragraph - you're sort of building up like that; that's my philosophy.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.