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

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 physical actions are always hard to describe, to translate.

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.

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 don't have a philosophy. If I had a philosophy, it's that I'm kind of literal minded. For example, I would never translate poetry - it's too hard, there are too many levels. Not that prose doesn't have many levels, but it's more grounded.

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.