The Translator's View
5 February 2025

Interview with Nathalie Castagné, translator and biographer of Goliarda Sapienza

Author: Federica Malinverno

Interview with Nathalie Castagné, translator and biographer of Goliarda Sapienza

How did you become a translator of Italian? 

 

I became a translator by chance, it wasn’t a vocation. I didn’t study Italian, but I went to Italy a lot, first with my parents, who loved Italy, and then on my own. So there was an immersion phenomenon. What’s more, I loved the language and used to sing opera.

At first, I was a reader at Denoël for Italian books, but also for French books, and one day I was offered the chance to do a translation, and then another, so I took the plunge.

 

Given that you started out as a reader, would you still have liked to work in publishing? 

 

Not really: what I was doing was writing, and that’s what was important to me. I wrote and sang. But what you do exclusively by yourself always dominates what you do, even if you do it passionately, using someone else’s language. And I would say the same about translation.

 

What does it mean to you to translate the complete works of a writer? 

 

I’ve never translated a complete work other than that of Goliarda Sapienza, so I’m talking about that particular experience.

First of all, I had to translate The Art of Joy. I had it read by Viviane Hamy in 2005. I was completely overwhelmed by the book: it spoke to me so much that I had to translate it. And then, as I always say, I felt I had to right an injustice. I mean, someone else could have done it, but it just happened to fall to me. Then Frédéric Martin, the editor of Le Tripode, was absolutely determined to publish her complete works: so I wasn’t completely alone in deciding to translate the complete works of this author.

To answer your question more precisely, when you translate a writer’s complete works, you have the impression that you understand more and more, but that wasn’t the case for me with The Art of Joy. Although the fact that I have progressed in my knowledge of Goliarda’s work through the translation has certainly changed something. Details, perhaps, but details matter.

Finally, in my opinion, each of Goliarda’s books has its own character, and I had to respect that character. So I think that in addition to the path of knowledge, it is also important to respect the specificity of the book.

 

Do you think the experience of translating the works of a living writer is different from that of a dead writer? 

 

I haven’t had much experience of translating living authors, with the exception of Paolo Barbaro or Elisabetta Rasy, for example, with whom I was able to discuss the translation of their first books.

But as far as Goliarda is concerned, Angelo Pellegrino, her second companion, is still alive, so I’ve asked him questions from time to time.

In general, to tell the truth, I like to be alone with an author, although it’s certainly good to have someone to question when necessary.

 

Is it necessary to adapt the language of translation when translating an older text for our time? Is it still important to propose new translations for works that are just beginning? In other words, can a translation age over time? 

 

I think that in the same way that a work endures over time, a translation undoubtedly needs to be revisited from time to time, but not always so quickly. There are some translations that really stand the test of time, and it’s perfectly fine to leave them as they are, or to change a word or two if there are mistakes.

Personally, I’ve never translated a text that is, let’s say, ancient, because the 20th century is not the same as antiquity. A text from the middle of the 20th century is, in my opinion, practically contemporary. I find it much harder to translate a completely contemporary text. What’s more, going to the opera has given me a particular knowledge of an archaic language, so I’m not very disorientated when faced with an archaic language. Finally, I think the best thing to do is to translate as simply as possible, without forcing it, and as closely as possible to what the author has written.

 

Is the publication of a new translation linked to the way the publishing market works? 

 

In part, yes, because I’m pretty sure that there are translations that still work very well and are being reissued. But sometimes a new translation can come from a translator’s desire to engage with a text they love.

 

What was it like writing the biography of Goliarda Sapienza? Although you already knew a lot about her work, were you surprised by any new discoveries? 

 

I didn’t know how to go about it because I’d never written a biography before. But when it was suggested to me, I thought I should do it in France, because I had translated everything, and that gave me a knowledge of Goliarda that not many people had.

I’ve hardly spoken to anyone who knew her. I wanted to at first, but then I gave up, because in the end my source for writing Goliarda’s biography was precisely the books I had translated. Obviously, that wasn’t enough. So I read some biographies in Italian.

Then, digging in different directions, I discovered something I hadn’t really suspected: in her autobiographical books, Goliarda changes a lot about the reality of her life. She also says so, and she acknowledges what she calls “the lie”, which is not, strictly speaking, a lie. So I was a little confused at first, but then I realised that this discovery was actually an extraordinary driving force for the biography. I compared what she said in her texts with the biographical elements that contradicted her texts. However, there is also a biographical element that is to some extent factual, because you have to play the biographical game, my biography was largely based on this movement.

 

So it was through this movement that you found your approach to writing this biography? 

 

I spent a long time saying to myself that I wasn’t going to make it, that I was going to float and flounder… And then I followed that movement, putting the texts in dialogue with my knowledge, and I took the plunge.

I also wanted to write a story, something that resembled a story, because that’s the way I write anyway.  What interested me was precisely this interplay between what had been, what I had read, and what had sometimes been transformed by Goliarda. I wanted to get to know her, not just her life.

 

It’s sometimes said that translators are the ‘invisible writers’ who, to a certain extent, erase their own voice in order to let the voice of those they translate shine through. Do you agree with that?

 

I think that translating is interpreting. So in reality, inevitably, to some extent, our voice comes through. But it’s true that the idea is to convey the other person’s voice.

 

Does this dynamic of interpretation also condition the work of a biographer? In the sense that you have to find the right balance between the biographer’s interpretation of the facts and the facts themselves? 

 

Yes, because it seems to me that from the moment you speak, you write as you are, and sometimes you add something personal. I knew very well that in any case I wouldn’t write without myself, in other words without an interpretation that is actually personal. An interpretation that I hope is accurate, that I hope is right, of course. But I can’t completely erase myself, and I don’t think you can completely erase yourself when you translate. It’s like a pianist: the music they play is often not his own, but he still plays it with what he is. In the end, the erasure is not total.

In other words, I would say that we translators are a passage and that this passage carries something of us. I think that even abandonment, passivity in a way, is an action. It’s this surrender that we have to seek when we translate, and even when we write. You have to let yourself be carried away. Of course, we construct when we write, but if there isn’t this element of movement, of surrender, I think something is missing.

 

Did writing a biography present you with any pitfalls or difficulties? 

 

I tried to maintain a certain balance throughout the writing process.  It was difficult at the beginning, but afterwards, once I got going, I think it was easy because I knew Goliarda very well and I’d accumulated a lot of information about her while living alongside her – if I can put it that way – through her books. In my biography I wanted to follow a chronological structure, except perhaps in the chapter on The Art of Joy, where I essentially give an analysis with some factual elements in the middle.

 

The publishing adventure of Goliarda Sapienza was extraordinary and, I would say, rather unusual. What do you remember about it and how do you interpret its success in France ? 

 

I have wonderful memories of the publication of The Art of Joy, because it really came about through me and my enthusiastic review, which led other people like Viviane Hamy and Frédéric Martin to decide to publish it.

It was also an amazing adventure because it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. There were a lot of obstacles, like the fact that the author was no longer here to talk about her book, the fact that it was very long, the fact that it hadn’t been a success in Italy, the fact that it was unlike any other, and so on. And in fact it was an extraordinary success.

I put it down to the transgressive spirit of the French. I think that what stopped everyone in Italy, that is the extremely daring beginning of the book, absolutely transported French readers, especially female readers. And I would add that in France we have a great tradition of writing novels. And, as if by chance, we started publishing her work with the novel and not with her autobiographical books.

And perhaps an identical book from France would have been less appreciated than one from Sicily, because the evocation of a Sicilian world is undoubtedly fascinating for the French. In the end, it’s an extraordinary story, and Goliarda Sapienza’s fate as a writer has been turned upside down.

Interview with Nathalie Castagné, translator and biographer of Goliarda Sapienza
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