Lahiri’s double-translated words (Italian to English by her, English to Greek in my own mind) had an even more soothing and satisfactory effect the second time around!

Having read, and deeply empathised with, Lahiri's In Other Words—a nonfiction work in which she interrogates her love for and struggles with the Italian language—I was looking forward to Dove mi trovo.

La scrittura è delicatissima, da italiana, capisco questo suo ricercare sintatticamente parola per parola. It is a really different format from what I had previously read from Lahiri but I have found it really interesting anyway. Dove mi trovo, which will be published in English as Whereabouts next spring, is the first novel Jhumpa Lahiri’s has written in Italian.

The city is not just the background where her life takes place, but a living interlocutor, a keeper of all of her memories. The joys of being alone and mental tranquillity when she is on her own, writing while sitting in the sun on the balcony of her flat are larded with her observations of others from her outsider’s point of view, contemplating what is and what could have been. Whereabouts is the latest novel by Jhumpa Lahiri that is captivating not only because of the beautiful prose but the dreamlike quality to the book as we follow an unknown narrator through an unknown city in Italy for an entire year. The narrator is highly observant, and there seems to be a promise of some small changes in her life as the book ends. The book is written in first person so we only read the narrator's point of view concerning her life.

She observes her surroundings and doesn’t do much else; she seems to struggle with depression or a depression-adjacent worldview and perspective.

She wrote her first work in Italian in 2015, a non-fiction piece entitled In altre parole which was translated into English as In Other Words by Ann Goldstein. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.

There are mentions of a troubled mother-daughter relationship, of a broken love affair, of potential ungrabbed and unachieved.