In Other Words

From the Pulitzer Prize winner, a surprising, powerful, and eloquent nonfiction debut

In Other Words is at heart a love story--of a long and sometimes difficult courtship, and a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. And although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterward, true mastery had always eluded her. So in 2012, seeking full immersion, she decided to move to Rome with her family, for "a trial by fire, a sort of baptism" into a new language and world.

In Rome, Lahiri began to read, and to write--initially in her journal--solely in Italian. In Other Words, an autobiographical work written in Italian, investigates the process of learning to express oneself in another language, and describes the journey of a writer seeking a new voice. Presented in a dual-language format, it is a book about exile, linguistic and otherwise, written with an intensity and clarity not seen since Nabokov. A startling act of self-reflection and a provocative exploration of belonging and reinvention.

Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein.


From the Hardcover edition.

JHUMPA LAHIRI is the author of four books: Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland. She has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Premio Gregor von Rezzori, and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. In 2015 she won the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia for In altre parole. She will be teaching at Princeton University starting in the Fall of 2015.


From the Hardcover edition.