When it came to light that Starnone is married to the writer who goes by Elena Ferrante, critics returned to Ties, suddenly eager to read it as a counterpart to Ferrante’s own Days of Abandonment. Ties, published last year, tells the story of a marriage in extremis and dissects a lifetime of accrued routine, deception, and petty resentment. (An English translation by Ann Goldstein appeared in 2015.) Just as important, in their way, were her first efforts at translation-a pair of novels, Ties and Trick, by her friend Domenico Starnone, the author of more than a dozen books and a winner of Italy’s prestigious Strega Prize. One consequence of this immersion was In Other Words, Lahiri’s memoir about language, and her first book written in Italian. She looked to the Italian language to reinvent herself on the page, restoring the joy and freedom in her work. There, she experienced what she described as “a radical transition, a state of complete bewilderment.” A set of preconceptions had hardened around her writing, and in Italy, Lahiri hoped to jettison these in pursuit of a new vulnerability. In 2012, having published four books and won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, Jhumpa Lahiri moved to Rome.
0 kommentar(er)
