A quote from Abdelkebir Khatibi / Una cita de A K

 

 ... separated from my mother tongue, I knew that when I spoke to her, my speech came back to her from outside of my love and in this language I loved her. I had begun an extraordinary adventure. If I happened to substitute one word for another (...) I didn't have the impression that I was making a mistake or breaking a law but rather that I was speaking two words simultaneously: one which reached her hearing (...) and a second word, an other, which was there and yet faraway, a vagabond, turned in upon itself.

... yo sabía, dijo, que separada de mi lengua materna, la palabra que le dirigía le llegaba desde fuera de mi amor, y en esa lengua la amaba. Había comenzado una aventura extraordinaria. Si sucedía que sustituía una palabra por otra (...) tenía la impresión, no de cometer un error o transgredir una ley, sino de pronunciar dos palabras simultáneamente: una que llegaba hasta ella (...) y otra que estaba allí y, sin embargo, lejana, vagabunda, vuelta sobre sí misma.

From Love in Two Languages, 1990.