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.

I tend to be kind of literal about translation. I think it's important to present the writer as closely as possible.

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

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.

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

I always hesitate to say that something is lifelike.

I think that being an editor, someone who works with words, is very good training for being a translator because it trains you to be attentive to words in a very specific, very concrete, very literal way.