Roman Stories

This book reveals what we don’t know or see when we meet others, either about them or ourselves. The Eternal City is the perfect setting. There is so much to ponder between the acts of daily life… an undertow of observation, lament, learning and remembrance that goes beyond our experience. We live our lives in our heads. Stories like Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection brings me out to wonder about moments and contemplate new ways to understand.

Well written stories that make you think.

This collection of stories, written in Italian (an acquired language for the author), then translated by the author into English with the help of an editor, is wonderful. Jhumpa Lahiri is one of my favorite writers. This collection is as good as Interpreter of Maladies. I read it recently because I’m soon going on a trip to Italy. I loved the story “The Steps” the best, but they’re all involving.

I loved interpreter of maladies, so I had high hopes for this book of short stories, but honestly the first two stories feel unfinished.

Wonderful short stories! Stunning actually!One of the best books I've read in years.An author I had never heard of and yet she she has received many awards including the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. She is a Professor of English at Barnard College. In addition she received the National Humanities Medal from Present Obama in 2014..I plan to read all of her books going forward.....her writing is that good!

I enjoyed reading the short stories. Although some of them had an abrupt ending that kept me perplexed for a while. May be that's the author's style. I loved her Unaccustomed Earth , Namesake and Lowland books that I read a couple of years ago.

Just like Lahiri’s previous works, this collection of stories is written skillfully and powerfully. She addresses issues that range from highly personal to the scale of society with great ease. I really appreciated how masterfully she wove the themes of the book through all the stories, making this collection a very complete work.

These stories are about people who are in one way or another displaced, but who find themselves in Rome, a glowing backdrop that becomes a character in itself. The stories, written first in Italian and then translated (largely by the author), concern people who are separated from their backgrounds -- because they are immigrants of color, because they are Western expats, and in a few cases just because they are who they are. Some of the stories I found moving and illuminating -- in particular "A Well-Lit Room", which is tragic in a gentle way. Others impressed me less. But I found all of them rewarding, and they certainly recalled a wonderful city.

Poignant and sad stories of immigrants living in ItalyShe is a magnificent raconteur and observer of the human condition

Lahiri’s writings are so beautiful one doesn’t want to stop reading them

The media could not be loaded. Amazing, This book knocked my socks off. A new image of Jhumpa Lahiri.After decades of writing about the educated, middle-class- families who migrated from Calcutta to the eastern coast of America, especially Boston, she highlighted the cultural conflicts, societal adjustments, revolts, and identity crises of the Bengalis that carried on till their second generation.In ‘The Lowland’, Ms Lahiri wrote about leftist ideas, student unrest, strikes, Marxism and the Naxalite movement of Bengal.Her first experiment with Italian was ‘In Other Words’. I think it was a debacle, and I read it because it was Jhumpa’s, and I gave it two stars.Before starting Roman Stories, I doubted whether I should read it. After finishing ‘The Boundary’ and ‘The Reentry’, I was bowled over, and I knew this was a prize-winning book.The prose of this book is flawless, lyrical and absorbing. One could feel the fragrance directly from the rustic countryside tandoor, raw and undressed, even the clinkers you have to jerk them off. I recommend one shouldn’t read this book in a single go. I enjoyed one or two stories per day in the early morning’s crisp air, with morning tea in my terrace garden full of seasonal flowers and birdsThis book shows that Ms Lahiri has left her Bengali baggage in the USA. She has taken the subject mainly of proletarians and middle-class Roman families settled in rural and remote areas. The theme of almost every story was female-oriented. It revolved around the Romans, men and women who temporarily or permanently made their base in Rome from another world or the other way around. Her stories superbly unfolded the romance, marriage, infidelity, separation, divorce and widowhood.One of the appealing characters was people who were taken as refugees or political asylum in Rome, probably from Muslim countries (She had not mentioned).When in Rome, do as Romans do? This is a centuries-old saying. One should embrace or at least try. Ms Lahiri herself is learning the Roman language, culture and etiquette. She is teaching and writing in Italian, and she unnecessarily wrote about the racism for asylum seekers who have lived in Rome for more than two or three decades and either taken PR or citizenship. She had shown all the local Romans, including the children, as villains or sociopaths. I believe this is Ms Lahiri’s leftist approach. She should have penned one story from the perspective of the working-class Romans.Lastly, I would suggest that Ms Lahiri does not need any translator for her Italian literature; she is fully efficient.I give five stars and recommend strongly to every book lover.Manjul,Delhi,India.

Jhumpa Lahiri's stories are like time-release capsules of emotion that slowly begin to energise the heart and mind. Her prose is written in love - the kind of love that sees and listens to what remains largely overlooked and unheard in the times we live in.

A pesar de venderse 'como nuevo' ha llegado sin la sobrecubierta :(