Roman stories / Jhumpa Lahiri ; translated from the Italian by the author with Todd Portnowitz.

Racconti romani. English

First United States edition.

9780593536322 (hardcover)
0593536320 (hardcover)
9781524712600 (international edition : paperback)
1524712604 (international edition : paperback)
9780593536339 (electronic book)

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2023.

©2023

English

204 pages ; 22 cm

9780593536322

PQ5984.L34 R3313 2023

853/.92

"In "The Boundary," a family vacations in the Roman countryside, though we see their lives through the eyes of the caretaker's daughter, who nurses a wound from her family's immigrant past. In "PP's Parties," a Roman couple, now empty nesters, find comfort and community with foreigners at their friend's yearly birthday gathering until the husband crosses a line. And in "The Steps," on a public staircase that connects two neighborhoods and the residents who climb up and down it, we see Italy's capital in all of its social and cultural variegations, filled with the tensions of a changing city: visibilityy and invisibility, random acts of aggression, the challenge of straddling worlds and cultures, and the meaning of home."
"Nine mesmerizing stories saturated in the details of Roman life that showcase Jhumpa Lahiri's extraordinary range and virtuosity"-- Provided by publisher.
Rome--metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multi-faceted and metaphysical--is the protagonist, not the setting, of these nine stories: the first short story collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning master of the form since her number one New York Times best seller Unaccustomed Earth. In "The Boundary," one family vacations in the Roman countryside, though we see their lives through the eyes of the caretaker's daughter, who nurses a wound from her family's immigrant past. In "P's Parties," a Roman couple, now empty nesters, finds comfort and community with foreigners at their friend's yearly birthday gathering--until the husband crosses a line. And in "The Steps," on a public staircase that connects two neighborhoods and the residents who climb up and down it, we see Italy's capital in all of its social and cultural variegations, filled with the tensions of a changing visibility and invisibility, random acts of aggression, the challenge of straddling worlds and cultures, and the meaning of home.
"These are splendid, searching stories, written in Jhumpa Lahiri's adopted language of Italian and seamlessly translated by the author and by Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz. Stories steeped in the moods of Italian master Alberto Moravia and guided, in the concluding tale, by the ineluctable ghost of Dante Alighieri, whose words lead the protagonist toward a new way of life." -- Publisher's description.

"This is a Borzoi book." -- title page verso.
Originally published in hardcover as Racconti roman, an imprint of Gruppo editoriale Mauri Spagnol, Milan, in 2022.

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