Reading (And Translating) One’s Past Writings

Jhumpa Lahiri:

“We write books in a fixed moment in time, in a specific phase of our consciousness and development. That is why reading words written years ago feels alienating. You are no longer the person whose existence depended on the production of those words. But alienation, for better or for worse, establishes distance, and grants perspective, two things that are particularly crucial to the act of translation.”

Translating Myself and Others, p. 84