In Other Words [Idioma Inglés] - Tapa dura

Affecting, engaging . . . In a perfectly titled memoir, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist chronicles her efforts to learn and write Italian. Lahiri, who wrote her text in Italian, presents an English translation (by Ann Goldstein) with Italian and English on facing pages. For Lahiri, Italian was her third language her mother spoke Bengali and she relates the reasons she felt drawn to Italian, her many difficulties learning it, and her move to Rome to write . . . Although there are paragraphs about vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, Lahiri is more interested in the effects of all of this on her writing and on her identity. Her memoir is also chockablock with memorable comments about writing and language. Why do I write? she asks. To investigate the mystery of existence. To get closer to everything that is outside of me. An honest, self-deprecating, and very moving account of a writer searching for herself in words. "Kirkus"(starred review)"

In this slim, lyrical nonfiction debut, Pulitzer-winner Lahiri traces the progress of her love affair with the Italian language. Unlike Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov, who also wrote in adopted languages, Lahiri doesn t leap directly into fiction. Though the book contains a short story, her first order of business is to tell her own story. She writes exquisitely about her experiences with language . . . Her unexpected metamorphosis provides a captivating and insightful lesson in the power of language to transform. "Publishers Weekly, "Book of the Week
Affecting, engaging . . . In a perfectly titled memoir, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist chronicles her efforts to learn and write Italian. Lahiri, who wrote her text in Italian, presents an English translation (by Ann Goldstein) with Italian and English on facing pages. For Lahiri, Italian was her third language her mother spoke Bengali and she relates the reasons she felt drawn to Italian, her many difficulties learning it, and her move to Rome to write . . . Although there are paragraphs about vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, Lahiri is more interested in the effects of all of this on her writing and on her identity. Her memoir is also chockablock with memorable comments about writing and language. Why do I write? she asks. To investigate the mystery of existence. To get closer to everything that is outside of me. An honest, self-deprecating, and very moving account of a writer searching for herself in words. "Kirkus"(starred review)"

An emotionally risky literary journey. "In Other Words "is a departure. For one thing, it s a memoir, [and] Lahiri has been famous as a fiction writer since she won the Pulitzer Prize for "Interpreter of Maladies. "Though she has published personal essays, she s never probed her own creativity and emotional process in such depth or with such bracing candor. Lahiri describes "In Other Words "as the linguistic autobiography of a writer seeking a new voice, but it is also a kind of travel book that charts a personal pilgrimage between Italy and America . . . The dichotomy [of English and Italian] turns out, in the course of this brave meditation, to be a love story and a mystery all in one. In that story lies the beginning of all the books that the author has not yet written. As Lahiri describes it, In learning Italian I learned, again, to write. John Burnham Schwartz, "The Wall Street Journal"
It takes courage for a writer as successful as Lahiri to publish in an acquired language . . . It s her way of becoming another writer one with the freedom and latitude that goes with being unskilled and unknown, if only to herself . . . No one would deny that a native speaker has capacities and instincts that the learner flails at, and Lahiri does a lovely job of documenting the effort it takes to get hold of these or fail to do so. And yet, as she is surely aware, for a writer it is impossible to be truly at home in language. As soon as you stop to consider "how "to say, you have ceased to be natural; you have become, if not foreign, then a little estranged. Writing always arrives late, runs after, falls behind, rearranges what was just put in place. It reveals the restlessness of language itself, in all its shifting multicolored variety. Christine Smallwood, "Harper s"
In this slim, lyrical nonfiction debut, Pulitzer-winner Lahiri traces the progress of her love affair with the Italian language. Unlike Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov, who also wrote in adopted languages, Lahiri doesn t leap directly into fiction. Though the book contains a short story, her first order of business is to tell her own story. She writes exquisitely about her experiences with language . . . Her unexpected metamorphosis provides a captivating and insightful lesson in the power of language to transform. "Publishers Weekly, "Book of the Week
Affecting, engaging . . . In a perfectly titled memoir, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist chronicles her efforts to learn and write Italian. Lahiri, who wrote her text in Italian, presents an English translation (by Ann Goldstein) with Italian and English on facing pages. For Lahiri, Italian was her third language her mother spoke Bengali and she relates the reasons she felt drawn to Italian, her many difficulties learning it, and her move to Rome to write . . . Although there are paragraphs about vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, Lahiri is more interested in the effects of all of this on her writing and on her identity. Her memoir is also chockablock with memorable comments about writing and language. Why do I write? she asks. To investigate the mystery of existence. To get closer to everything that is outside of me. An honest, self-deprecating, and very moving account of a writer searching for herself in words. "Kirkus"(starred review)"

National Best Seller

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.. NOTA: El libro no está en español, sino en inglés.