Interview with Marina Harss [Read This Next]

As part of this week’s Read This Next feature on Alberto Moravia’s Two Friends, we just posted an interview with translator Marina Harss conducted by U of R translation grad student (and fellow soccer fan) Acacia O’Connor.

Here’s an excerpt:

Acacia O’Connor: Two Friends is a unique text — it’s different segments of unfinished works by the great Italian writer Alberto Moravia, rather than an even nearly complete novel manuscript — how do these different segments work together in your mind? What sorts of challenges did this text, which at times misses segments etc., present to you as a translator?

Marina Harss: I think the challenge for me was the “unfinished” quality, sorting out the repetitions in the texts, dealing with spots where I knew that Moravia would have cleaned things up. How to be respectful to Moravia while also being completely faithful to the text. Also, I found that in dealing with three unfinished texts, it was more difficult to “get into the flow” and really get to know the characters, their past and their future. [. . .]

AO: What do you think Moravia, or any author like him really, would feel or think about having these manuscripts published? And translated into English?

MH: Honestly, I think he would probably be horrified. He burned his early drafts, and these only survived because they were in a pile of papers that was misplaced during a move. Clearly, he didn’t feel the book worked, since he abandoned it to write Il Disprezzo. But people who are interested in (and love) Moravia will get something out of these fragments, and in that sense it is a tribute to the writer.

Be sure and read the full interview, and tomorrow we’ll post Acacia’s review.

OK, I’m out. Our air conditioning shut down around noon today, so it’s approximately 135 degrees in my office and my brain is melting.