Pour ou Contre (For or Against)

Translator Jean-Loup Combemale takes on the Red Duchess

Suzanne Stroh: Jean-Loup, you were born in France, raised in Paris, escaped Nazi occupation through north Africa, grew up in New York, came of age at the U.S. Naval Academy and spent much of your career in a submarine before turning to editing and publishing. How many languages did you pick up along the way?

Jean-Loup Combemale: I think the operative words here are “pick up.” I was five, six, seven years old when we were scurrying around leaving France, so I got dipped into languages and pulled right back out. What it did was, even then, show me how much fun it was to talk and connect to people–that’s a great gift to give a child. I learned Italian and French from my nanny and my mother; basic German from soldiers in the streets of Paris, Arabic from street kids in Oran and Casablanca. When our Portuguese ship stopped in Bermuda on the way to the U.S. I learned my first words of English–“Thank you.”  And when we got to the U.S. I learned English and promptly forgot everything except my French, which we spoke at home.