by Fabio Pedone and Enrico Terrinoni
This self-interview is, in some ways, a self-translation – not in interlinguistic terms but rather in a sort of inter-existential dimension. Here, the two Italian translators of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake ask themselves questions which they attempt to answer 1) according to the primitive drive which led them to embark on such an adventurous project, and 2) in order to respond to some of the possible questions around the Wake experience that are still, and to some extent need to remain, unanswered. The Wake teaches us that all good answers respond to questions that have not yet been fully formulated. Joyce’s last book is in this sense the ultimate answer to a non-question; and non-questions are not only those precious questions we continuously ask ourselves in the odysseys of our existence, but also the fundamental dilemmas around what it means to exist. And to exist is to translate ourselves.