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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.