Life & Wisdom Quote by Leonardo Sciascia

Translation, Sciascia suggests, is not a second original but a flipped-over original: the same picture, minus its sheen, plus its scaffolding. Cervantes' tapestry metaphor lands because it refuses the romance of perfect equivalence. On the front side, the image looks inevitable; on the back, you see knots, loose ends, and the hidden labor that made “inevitability” possible. That is what translation exposes: the machinery of meaning.

Sciascia, a Sicilian novelist and chronicler of institutional doublespeak, isn’t picking this image for quaintness. He’s drawn to the politics of surfaces. A tapestry’s reverse isn’t a fraud; it’s still the work, but it changes what you notice. Likewise, translation rearranges value. It can clarify structure (syntax, logic, emphasis) while dulling texture (idiom, music, cultural shorthand). The metaphor also carries a warning: if you mistake the reverse for the face, you’ll judge the art by the knots. Readers who demand “literal” fidelity often want the back to look like the front, an impossible request that pretends language has interchangeable parts.

In context, invoking Cervantes is a sly reminder that modern European literature begins in a book obsessed with mediation: stories within stories, authors within authors, copies that wobble the idea of authenticity. Sciascia’s intent is to push humility into the conversation. Translation is not betrayal; it’s a necessary, imperfect viewing angle that reveals both the image and the seams holding it together.