In Other Words

A Memoir

By: Jhumpa Lahiri, Ann Goldstein - translator

Narrated by: Jhumpa Lahiri

From the best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize winner, a powerful nonfiction debut—an “honest, engaging, and very moving account of a writer searching for herself in words.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

In Other Words is a revelation. It 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. Although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterward, true mastery always eluded her.

Seeking full immersion, she decides to move to Rome with her family, for “a trial by fire, a sort of baptism” into a new language and world. There, she begins 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, this is a wholly original book about exile, linguistic and otherwise, written with an intensity and clarity not seen since Vladimir Nabokov: a startling act of self-reflection and a provocative exploration of belonging and reinvention.

Read by the Author, in both English and the original Italian

©2016 Jhumpa Lahiri (P)2016 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"“Gorgeous . . . the most unusual of self-portraits. It is fitting that Italy, a nation with no unifying language for centuries, should inspire a writer of Jhumpa Lahiri’s stature to organize her reflections around the concept of exile. Why abandon the English language that made her famous, and move with her family to Rome? Because she was in love . . . Dante’s words [about exile] seem relevant when speaking about In Other Words, a book that is everywhere about displacement and the discoveries it can lead to. Lahiri reached out to Italian when English stopped offering her the solitude she craved as a writer; now that she has left Italy we must wait to see where the arrow of exile points her.” —Joseph Luzzi, The New York Times Book Review

“What separates an artist from a creator is one’s insatiable desire to develop his or her craft, one’s perpetual feelings of dissatisfaction and the willingness to embrace challenges, even if that means reinvention. Lahiri’s new book is an expression of just this.” —Nicholas LaRousse, Everyday eBook

“Bold, elegant, poignant. In Other Words artfully and touchingly paints Lahiri’s journey into a new life. Her joy in working with language emanates from every page; the uncomplicated frankness of her voice allows her to cover a satisfyingly wide range of subjects.... In what felt to her like a dangerous leap of faith, she lets her insights stand naked and alone, garbed in neither character nor plot—and all the more beautiful and true for their lovely guilelessness.. . . A pleasure to read.” —Emily Zhao, The Harvard Crimson

Confessioni d'amore a una lingua

Caspita! La mia scrittrice Americana prediletta diventò un’ autrice tutta Italiana! Non ne sapevo un bel nulla di questo suo lato segreto, la mia sorpresa è così ancora più grande. Eppoi questo testo è inpeccabile, tutto lei.
Per me questa narrativa sa del Secondo Dopoguerra, Morante, Ginzburg, Silone, magari Pavese o Primo Levi. Antiquata in un senso positivissimo, una prosa profondamente radicata nelle tradizioni letterarie novecentesche. Be’, mai dei predecessori migliori!
Tale cambiamento linguistico è ben raro nella letteratura. Mi viene in mente “L’analfabeta” di Ágota Kristóf, ma il suo è un resoconto assai scarno rispetto a questo saggio serio. Ognuno che riflette sulla lingua, su qualsiasi lingua, deve leggere „In altre parole”. Spero non ci vuole sottolineare tale obbligo di pensare spesso alle lingue, all’identità.
Certamente, questa mi è subito diventata un’opera arciimportante, stracolma di idee e contenuto molto compatti. Quanto alla versione sonora, per me è decisamente il libro audio dell’anno 2016.
Penso alle mie lotte diurne con l’Inglese e non vorrei aggiungere molto alla pronuncia della signora Lahiri. Dimenticavo per interi minuti che ella non è italofona, e questo non è poco. Una cosa però deve comprendere: senza l’uso corretto (e frequente) del raddoppiamento consonantico il flusso del discorso non sarà mai completamente autentico. Penso una seconda lettura avrebbe anche portata dei risultati migliori. Comunque sia, l’autrice ci offre un’esperienza del tutto gradevole.
Raccomando i lettori bilingui ascoltino ambedue le registrazioni. La traduzione Inglese del testo originale dà effetti sorprendenti, ci mette qualcosa di più, qualcosa di diverso. Tutto sommato lo considero un capolavoro e lo riascolterò varie volte di sicuro.
Penso a Giumpa con calore. Penso in un certoqualmodo sia arrivata a casa. Benvenuta in Italia, benvenuta nell’Italiano!

Beautiful meditation on language and art

As a journalist who has studied a foreign language, lived abroad, and spent considerable time in Italy, I enjoyed Jhumpa Lahiri's exploration of the themes of exile and finding a new voice in her writing through another language (in her case, a third). This slim volume, translated from her new-found Italian to English, her language of core competency, reflects the often staccato style of a foreign speaker, which felt repetitive at first. That's forgivable, because Lahiri makes you co-pilot on her journey to navigate her way through this new, more romantic language, one that makes her feel more at home and creative, but one in which, to her own admission, she still struggles. What I missed from this book was more of her story (she moves her family to a new country and rarely discusses those struggles or sacrifices). I also craved more details of her new surroundings, the gorgeous city of Rome, which she leaves mostly to the reader's imagination. This book, which seems to be part journal, is almost more of a lengthy essay fit for a literary magazine than a book-length memoir. I was shocked when, three hours into my listening, the book ended. For the remaining three and a half hours, she reads the same book in Italian (a beautiful Italian, but still Italian)!

Language As A Lover

When I first heard that Jhumpa Lahiri had chosen to put her writing career on hold in order to pursue her long-term passion for the Italian language, my initial reaction was similar to the one many sports fans had when Michael Jordan decided to come out of retirement to follow his dream of becoming a professional baseball player, namely admiration, perplexity and a little bit of curiosity.

Why would a wildly successful author, Pulitzer Prize/Pen Award winner, awarded with the 2014 National Humanities Medal, take such a leap of faith?
The answers to this question are complex and profound and after reading this short but very poignant memoir, my sense is that Lahiri herself doesn't necessarily have definite answers.

Written in Italian, "In Other Words" include a few fictional stories, which Lahiri acknowledges were based on her own experiences during the two years she and her family lived in Italy on what she calls her "linguistic pilgrimage".

I am not sure that the author would be able to replicate her success in her new adopted language, so far it seems to me that is a work in progress.

Self-doubt, the search of identity and a foreboding sense of understanding many cultures but not completely fitting or belonging to any of them, is at the center of this short memoir.

On a personal level, I felt a deep sense of connection and empathy with the author and how aptly she describes the sense of wonder one can experience when learning a new language, a process that can be rewarding and enlightening, but also intellectually exhausting.

I felt that Lahiri so accurately described my own experience while reading in a second language - in my case English - when she asserts:

"I believe that reading in a foreign language is the most intimate way of reading".

Lahiri's account of her quest to master the Italian language struck me at times as a little bit self-serving and redundant, but as a whole I truly enjoyed this introspective, thoughtful meditation on the central role language plays in our lives and most importantly in the lives of writers.

At this point in her life, she sounds to me like a writer in transition, a woman looking for answers who can't stand still because she is trying to figure out the next chapter in her writing career.

Although Lahiri's narration felt a bit flat and I thought it lacked intensity on her delivery, I've come to appreciate memoirs read by the authors because ultimately they are better at expressing their own words.

Excellent writing but terrible narration

Every part of me wants to give this at least 4 stars for the writing. Sigh. The narration was so monotonous and inspirited. I hope they consider a rerecord.

A Lexical love affair

Jhumpa Lahiri won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for “Interpreter of Maladies”. She has won many literary awards over the years. This is her first non-fiction book. I was interested in reading this because the advertising blub said it was about her struggle to learn a new language. I have been struggling to learn Spanish so I thought I might learn something about learning another language from Lahiri. This book will interest those readers who are interested in learning another language and are interested in the writing process.

Lahiri’s essay goes into her relationship with language and of her identity of always feeling like an outsider or foreigner. She was born in England of Bengali immigrants. She moved to the United States as a small child and was raised speaking primarily English; the family spoke Bengali at home. She tells of learning Latin in school and then as an adult learning Italian. She said she fell in love with Italian and felt it much more of an expressive language than English. She moved to Italy to totally immerse herself in the language.

Lahiri goes into great detail about the work of writing and language. I learned about what the author goes through trying to find just the right word to express the exact meaning intended. I also learned some techniques to help me in my attempt to learn Spanish. I thought it was interesting that speaking Bengali helped Lahiri with the pronunciation of Italian words; apparently she speaks almost accent free which would not be the case if she went from English only to Italian. The author revealed much about herself and love of lexicology and the inner drive to write.

The book is beautifully written; I read the audiobook version from Audible and think this is the best way to read the book because of all the Italian words. The book is divided in half: the first part in English the second half is the original Italian version of the book. Lahiri had a translator Ann Goldstein translate the book from Italian to English as she was afraid she might try to rewrite the book in English. Jhumpa Lahiri narrated the book herself.

I wish I spoke Italian

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Granted, I didn't read the whole description of the audiobook before purchase, but I was expecting a 7 hour book that I could fully understand. If I am ever lucky enough to learn Italian I will be able to return to the second part of this production. Jhumpa Lahiri's efforts to take the leap and write in a 2nd (3rd?) language are admirable.

For me, 1 problem with the book, and 1 1/2 problems with the audio version

I love Rome, the Italian language, and accounts of personal journeys, and I am happy for Ms. Lahiri's great success. But while I found her very personal reasons for this undertaking--her initial great success in English, her primary language--interesting, I thought that expecting this book to be of wider interest was a lot to ask. (Also, I found her ongoing gripes about people's surprise at what language she was speaking and how well she was speaking it to be tedious and self-absorbed, but maybe that's just me… ) And having her Italian translated back into English by someone else was just weird.

Her section on Daphne and Apollo and metamorphosis was brilliant, though. Stunning really.

Regarding the audio version, while the narrator's Italian was excellent, I found her reading voice to be a bit difficult to listen to, a little monotonous and strained. But my biggest quibble is with the audio book's form, though there was probably no other solution: having the first half of the book be in English, and the second half of the book be in Italian. In the print copy, I believe, the Italian and English versions are on facing pages, separated paragraph by paragraph so the reader can compare them. That is not possible with the audio version.

Still, I am glad the audio version exists, and I wish the gifted writer continued great success. But I found this particular book to o be something of a disappointment.

She shouldn't have written this book

I could not finish it as one can perceive that it is written in a language foreign to the writer. Short sentences for beginners. I love her books in English, well interpreted with the Indian accent. But this book has no story and it is written as I would write a book in French or German.

Not at all interesting, just drones on

I don’t know, maybe it’s the delivery or the story itself - it seems whiney. And just drones on in a “woe is me and my inability to connect with a language or a culture that I’m not a part of but so longingly cling to.” I’m a huge fan of Ms. Lahiri’s works, so it makes me sad that this one is just awful.

In other words review

More than 50% of the book is narrated in Italian; so for English readers like me it was a big disappointment. Even though I am a great fan of her writing, this book seriously disappointed me big time. I am not interested in what people think of me as an italian writer being a south asian.