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.

I really had wanted to learn Italian for a long time. I think ever since - or even maybe even before I had read Dante. And I just sort of had this idea that I wanted to read Dante in Italian. And then in my office, we actually had a class - an Italian class.

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.

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.

I always hesitate to say that something is lifelike.

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