Dove mi trovo (Italian Edition)

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In its starred review, Publishers Weekly wrote, "Lahiri's poetic flourishes and spare, conversational prose are on full display." [8] Sono rimasta molto colpita da questa lettura, non pensavo proprio di trovare pagine e pagine di totale e completa solitudine e melanconia.... Dove mi trovo, which will be published in English as Whereabouts next spring, is the first novel Jhumpa Lahiri's has written in Italian. Having read, and deeply empathised with, Lahiri's In Other Words—a nonfiction work in which she interrogates her love for and struggles with the Italian language—I was looking forward to Dove mi trovo. Although I bought this book more than a year ago, during my last trip to Italy, part of me wasn't ready to read it just yet. A teensy-weensy part me feared that I would find her Italian to be stilted. As it turns out, I should have not second-guessed Lahiri. This is the kind of writing that is easy to slap the label 'navel-gazing' upon but that would be ungracious. Not everything has to be "oh! look at the state of the world", it can be about solitude, the pleasure of figs and the delights of the local stationery shop. In recent years, you’ve been splitting your time between the United States and Italy. Travel has, of course, become much harder during the pandemic. Were you translating the novel during this time? Did it make you feel far away?

These reflections are admirable and recognisable, in much the same way muted still life paintings of say, apples, are. But after gazing dutifully upon the thoughts of a woman in her late 40s living alone in Italy ( I presume, due to all the piazza's and good coffee ) you might be ready for something radical to happen. "Whereabouts" is not that novel, it is an introspective, mood piece and since "late-40s woman that likes stationary" is a tribe I happen to identify with, I found many things to admire about it. Whereabouts" is a slender novel composed of a series of vignettes about an unnamed, introverted, female narrator. Jhumpa Lahiri wrote the book when she was living in Rome, and the chapter titles such as "At the Trattoria" and "In the Piazza" indicate an Italian setting. And so the depiction of this woman’s life reads as a metaphorical journey echoing Lahiri’s transformation, which as well as having freed her also must have made her aware of her inescapable inner boundaries: A total solitude that sincerely suffocates the reader, the protagonist seems deliberately created without the possibility to ask and give herself the reason of things and without strength and desire for a "real" change. In Italian we’ll call it a "piagnona".Do original: “Self-translation affords a second act for a book, but in my opinion, this second act pertains less to the translated version than to the original, which is now readjusted and realigned thanks to the process of being dismantled and reassembled”. (LAHIRI, 2021b). Do original: “My impulse at the time was to protect my Italian. Returning to English was disorienting, frustrating, also discouraging. […] In addition, had I translated this book, the temptation would have been to improve it, to make it stronger by means of my stronger language”. (LAHIRI, 2017, p. 13-14). (A nota introdutória de In Altre Parole, escrita por sua autora, é apresentada apenas em Língua Inglesa). She knows them, sees them but she knows them more in her mind rather than confront them. It is more like the character owe each of these characters something but she never demanded from them.

The town, practically abandoned this afternoon, starts to drown in a piercing light. We're doubled over by a sharp wind and our eyes are filled with tears. We see the church at the top of the hill, and an ancient olive tree decorated with shiny red balls, in place of a Christmas tree. The higher we climb, the more we feel the wind and the cold. We're enfolded by the wide-open space, enclosed by all that emptiness." I only hope that she did not have in her heart that depressed vision if not jealous of the reality described there, otherwise Juhmpa, what a great woman you are!! Whereabouts is the latest novel by Jhumpa Lahiri that is captivating not only because of the beautiful prose but the dreamlike quality to the book as we follow an unknown narrator through an unknown city in Italy for an entire year. And the fifth shining star was given because Lahiri moved to Italy quite a few years ago embracing the country, the culture and the language. She wrote this book in Italian and then translated it herself into English. Brava Signorina!!! The place is an unnamed city, somewhere in Italy; it could be Rome but that’s only a guess, it could be any old town where past and present meet. The time is an unspecified present spanning the course of a year, complete with all the scenic props the change of seasons entails. The unnamed narrator is a 40ish dottoressa in the local university who has consciously chosen to lead a life quite detached from intimate relationships. Throughout nearly 50 vignettes/chapters with titles like “On the Sidewalk”, “In the Piazza”, “On the Couch”, “At Dawn”, "In the Mirror”, “In My Head”, we get glimpses of her solitary life – and in the process we put together the personal landscape the author set out to paint.Whereabouts was first written in Italian, Lahiri's second book in the language after In Other Words, a non-fiction book. [2] Though the city in which the book is set is not disclosed, Lahiri has said it "[...] was born in Rome and set in my head in Rome and written almost entirely on return visits to Rome". [3] Synopsis [ edit ] Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and later received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College in 1989. She then received multiple degrees from Boston University: an M.A. in English, an M.A. in Creative Writing, an M.A. in Comparative Literature and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She took up a fellowship at Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center, which lasted for the next two years (1997-1998). The book is set out in a series of short chapters – set over a year, in which the unnamed narrator, living in the unnamed City (which seems to be Rome) in which she was born traces her life over the course of a year. With a small number of exceptions, each chapter is set in a location (the sidewalk, the street, at the trattoria, in the bookstore, in the waiting room, at my house, in bed), time (In Spring, In August, In Winter) with a few set “In My Head” (I believe these are 'Tra sé e sé' in the original). Whenever my surroundings change I feel enormously sad. This is especially true if the place I leave behind is linked to memories, grief, or happiness. It's the change itself that unsettles me[.]"

Do original: “[…] the translation of an original work into another language by the author himself” (POPOVIČ, 1976, p. 10). One thing that can be said about Jhumpa Lahriri’s new novel, “Whereabouts,” is that by adding to this gray subgenre, it strikes a victory for female representation. Lahriri, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for her first collection of stories, “Interpreter of Maladies,” is a careful explorer of subterranean emotional pain. She wrote “Whereabouts” in Italian and then translated it into English, which contributes to its sheen of deliberateness and distance.I listened to my parents and did what they asked me to. Even though, in the end, I never made them happy. And this might be petty, but I take some issue with how she translated the Svevo quote that is used as the epigraph to the book. Lahiri's translation reads: Originally written in Italian it is translated by the author herself and it reveals her poetic soul. The language is enchanting. You feel warm through your whole being. More a reflection on the wonder of life and the things around you. You don’t feel like a confident listening to gossip; you don’t feel you are just nodding in the right places. You feel part of the woman’s life, as integral to her being and presence as her shoes. Not just seeing with her eyes but engaging all your senses. Definitely though a worthwhile read and one I would not be surprised at all to see longlisted for the Booker – although this time the International 2022 version (the 2021 prize being the first to feature a self-translated book).

As I wrote in a post about it, In altre parole is undoubtedly a book about learning Italian but it is also a touching declaration of love for the Italian language. The writer describes the struggles of learning a foreign language during adulthood but also tells how her passion for the language has always guided her. It’s an incredibly inspiring book and a mandatory read if you are a student of Italian too. We learn that her "spartan life" has included multiple lovers, many of them married or duplicitous. Her attraction to a friend's husband provides a frisson of suspense as she wonders "what it would be like to take things a step further" than their "chaste, fleeting bond." Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri was born in London and brought up in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. Brought up in America by a mother who wanted to raise her children to be Indian, she learned about her Bengali heritage from an early age.

GRUTMAN, 2018 GRUTMAN, Rainier. Jhumpa Lahiri and Amara Lakhous: resisting self-translation in Rome. Testo & Senso, 2018. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340493086_Resisting_self-translation_Jhumpa_Lahiri_and_Amara_Lakhous . Acesso em: 10 fev. 2021. The prose style is peaceful, restrained, moderate, unhurried - it never changes pace and is straightforward to read. I don't know - this just feels underwhelming to me, a sort of generic version of contemporary 'literary women's writing' that never engaged or connected with me - instantly forgettable, in my case, I'm afraid. If you love people watching this is a perfect novel for you. The character’s ability to take us into their world and show us what they are seeing was seamlessly and flawlessly executed. I felt I was there experiencing life with the main character. It was like getting this inclusive intel into this person’s life, while it is not super life changing it gets increasingly interesting. The author’s ability to write about the ordinary things such as going to the pool and making it interesting is what got me. I was thoroughly invested.