When Jhumpa Lahiri gave up English and found a new voice while writing in Italian
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When Jhumpa Lahiri gave up English and found a new voice while writing in ItalianBy Joumana Khatib, New York Times
Last Updated: Apr 22, 2021, 07:39 PM IST
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In 2012, she moved to Rome so she could pursue a decades long interest in the language.
New York Times
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Literary translators have come up with plenty of analogies for their trade. Some compare it to acting, others to performing in a chamber ensemble.
Jhumpa Lahiri opted for a more visceral description in “In Other Words,” the first book she wrote in Italian. English was “a hairy, smelly teenager” menacing her nascent Italian, she wrote, which she cradled “like a newborn.”
Writing in Italian, Jhumpa Lahiri Found a New Voice
In an unusual literary and linguistic feat, the Pulitzer-winning author of “Interpreter of Maladies” and “The Namesake” wrote her latest novel, “Whereabouts,” in Italian and translated it to English.
“I was just convinced that the book couldn’t be in English,” Jhumpa Lahiri said, “because I didn’t know where in me it had come from.”Credit.Celeste Sloman for The New York Times
Literary translators have come up with plenty of analogies for their trade.
Some compare it to acting, others to performing in a chamber ensemble.
Jhumpa Lahiri opted for a more visceral description in “In Other Words,” the first book she wrote in Italian. English was “a hairy, smelly teenager” menacing her nascent Italian, she wrote, which she cradled