“Roman Stories” - Jhumpa Lahiri

 🍝I’ve been a diehard fan of Lahiri’s lyrical prose since “The Interpreter of Maladies”. RS is a short story collection featuring Rome as more than a setting for her stories. Interestingly, Lahiri wrote this collection in Italian, and then translated it herself along with Todd Portnowitz. 

🍝 RS portrays the nativism and racism permeating a society absorbing an influx of newcomers from the world over. In addition, she touches upon basic human emotions (i.e. loneliness, unwanted visibility, invisibility, dissatisfaction) that are the same whether in Rome or Rio. Lahiri’s unnamed characters (“L”, “the mother”, “the family”) suggest a certain universality of the stories of immigrants, expats, and native Romans alike.

🍝 “The Steps” is a series of vignettes featuring different lives all connected by a staircase which joins different parts of Rome. 

🍝 “Well-Lit House” and “Procession” are heartbreaking.

🍝 “The Boundary” juxtaposes 1 family’s restful, rejuvenating sojourn to the country with the crushing loneliness of the caretakers who reside nearby and experience the very same conditions admired by the visitors, daily.