La part de l’intime dans le désir de traduire

The desire to translate may not be innate; on the other hand some individuals may offer fertile ground for such a desire to grow and bear fruit. A wide variety of mental and physical elements may, like alchemy, combine to generate the need to translate. However, it would seem that a crucial trigger is required, which we can call the motive, to make us aware of this still unformed desire and put it into practice. In my own case, the determining parameters that led me to active translation were a receptiveness to others, an ability to listen, the repeated mental gymnastics involved in moving from one language to another, the practice of music, and an attraction to elsewhere in the broadest sense. The trigger was my meeting with a “spiritual father”, which awakened in me the desire – not to say the need – to translate his words and enabled me to combine and use the previously unconnected qualities that were required.