I think you do need empathy, but I resist the familiar notion that the translator somehow becomes the author, or has some sort of special telepathic relationship with the author. Frankly, I think that’s a bit presumptuous and grandiose, and it obscures the delicate process by which the translator adjusts his or her own voice to the author’s voice. It requires a kind of harmonizing, by which I mean that the translator must find a tone in her own register that somehow suits the author’s. It is easier, at least for me, to translate an author or a character for whom I have a natural affinity.