Father Joseph Fessio, the founder and editor of Ignatius Press in San Francisco, interviewed the founding translator for the press, Father Simeon, formerly Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis on July 28.
Excerpts from the interview:
Father Fessio: “Ignatius Press began because we wanted to publish works of the great European authors – DeLubac, Von Balthasar, Ratzinger, Bouyer – and that required translation. When we began to do translation, I got a postcard from Hans Urs von Balthasar, one of his typical little postcards, saying there’s a young graduate student at Emory University in Georgia who would be a fine translator, and so I contact you. What was the first book you translated?
Father Simeon: Heart of the World.
Father F.: Heart of the World. Our very first book, although it came out a month after Bouyer’s book, Woman in the Church, but still in print, still a glorious book…
We used to say morning prayer in St. Ignatius church on the left-hand side, the Marian altar there. We were just finishing morning prayer there, and you walked up the side aisle of St. Ignatius church bleary-eyed from an all-night bus trip. Your eyes were like little pin pricks because you were so tired.
Father S.: Correction: it was not an all-night, remember I’m coming from Atlanta to San Francisco by Greyhound bus, so it was more like four nights of on-and-off sleeping on the buses….
To watch the 37-minute video, click here.