The translator is clearly the only true reader of a text, certainly more than any critic, perhaps even more than its author...

[Frederique]

The translator is clearly the only true reader of a text, certainly more than any critic, perhaps even more than its author. The critic of a text engages in nothing more than an ephemeral courtship with it, its author is its father or husband, but the translator is its lover.
Gesualdo Bufalino, Il malpensante, 1987

Italian version