I'm bound to fail when I write in Italian, but unlike my sense of failure in the past, this doesn't torment or grieve me.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Translation is the art of failure.
When I write in Italian - this is just the metaphor that came to me immediately, and I really think this is what it is - I feel like I'm writing with my left hand. Because of that weakness, there is this enormous freedom that comes with it.
I realize that the wish to write in a new language derives from a kind of desperation.
Italian was my first foreign language. I speak it better than English.
I'm Italian and we curse a lot when we talk.
Failure has been my best friend as a writer. It tests you, to see if you have what it takes to see it through.
You fail only if you stop writing.
I love being Italian.
I want to speak seventeen languages. When you think like that, you'll be consumed by failure. I'm haunted daily by what I don't know.
Take care, these Italians, full of failings, are neither you, nor me; they are your neighbors, the ones you meet on the staircase and whom you do not like to greet.