Translating Myself and Others

by Jhumpa Lahiri

They are a new and stimulating element in my reading diet,

In the world of translation, Ovid’s great poem, for me, is the sun.

To be a writer-translator is to value both being and becoming.

I think of writing and translating as two aspects of the same activity, two faces of the same coin, or maybe two strokes, exercising distinct but complementary strengths, that allow me to swim greater distances, and at greater depths, through the mysterious element of language.

You’re of Indian origin, were born in London, raised in America. You write books in English. What does Italian have to do with any of that? The more I explained, the more people I met in Rome persisted, intrigued, a little stupefied: But why, exactly?

From time to time new metaphors came to mind, even if I didn’t look for them anymore.

How wonderful that, in Italian, the etymology of the word for door, porta, comes from the verb to bring, portare, which also means to raise, sollevare, “because Romulus, in mapping out the walls of the city with a plow, raised them in the very place where the gates [porte] would be constructed.”2 Although a door remains something inanimate and concrete, the word’s root conveys a decisive and dynamic act.

To read means, literally, to open a book, and at the same time, to open a part of one’s self.

I was aware that the constraints of my Italian annoyed some readers.