Whereabouts ( Italian: Dove mi trovo) is a 2018 novel by Jhumpa Lahiri. It is her third novel, her first since The Lowland (2013). It was originally written in Italian, and later translated into English by Lahiri herself. [1] Writing and development [ edit ]

And....(just sharing).... contemplating once again, and it’s not been the first time I've said this -- To translate is to alter one’s linguistic coordinates, to grab on to what has slipped away, to cope with exile.The prose style is peaceful, restrained, moderate, unhurried - it never changes pace and is straightforward to read. I don't know - this just feels underwhelming to me, a sort of generic version of contemporary 'literary women's writing' that never engaged or connected with me - instantly forgettable, in my case, I'm afraid. Oh this one pains me. I love reading Lahiri's books. One of her books is in my top all time favorites. She is an author that I beg my library for her books without even reading what they are about. I did the same her, but in the end, I was disappointed with this one. As a matter of fact, she has written In altre parole, one of the most popular books about learning Italian, a book that many students have read – either in Italian or in English – and that many have loved. Dove mi trovo, which will be published in English as Whereabouts next spring, is the first novel Jhumpa Lahiri's has written in Italian. 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. Although I bought this book more than a year ago, during my last trip to Italy, part of me wasn't ready to read it just yet. A teensy-weensy part me feared that I would find her Italian to be stilted. As it turns out, I should have not second-guessed Lahiri.

Originally written in Italian it is translated by the author herself and it reveals her poetic soul. The language is enchanting. You feel warm through your whole being. More a reflection on the wonder of life and the things around you. You don’t feel like a confident listening to gossip; you don’t feel you are just nodding in the right places. You feel part of the woman’s life, as integral to her being and presence as her shoes. Not just seeing with her eyes but engaging all your senses. And so the depiction of this woman’s life reads as a metaphorical journey echoing Lahiri’s transformation, which as well as having freed her also must have made her aware of her inescapable inner boundaries:

La mia Posizione!

This book is beyond beautiful, the writing is precise, moving, and gives you this calming effect that you are exactly where you need to be. In Whereabouts we follow a woman who is a professor at a university, Lahiri takes us through her daily wonderings to the supermarket, vacation, pool and friend’s dinner. We get the inner workings of her mind, how she views herself, the people and the world around her. There is a strong presence of aloneness but strength in owning your time and being fine with being alone. An unnamed narrator in an unnamed Italian city recounts a year in her life through a series of short, simple, quiet vignettes, each stamped by a "whereabout" in her life: In the Hotel; By the Sea; In My Head, At the Coffee Bar, etc. She is a university professor in her mid-forties, single, never married, mourning her father who died when she was fifteen, and feeling vaguely guilty about her aging mother, who also lives alone in another city. She's an understated introvert in an ebullient culture that values large groups of friends and family members, that prizes abundance in its art, music and food. She carefully segments her time to fill the spaces in her life: the hours at work, meals in local trattoria, twice-weekly swims, reading before bed, the weekend's empty hours when she can hide under the covers all day if she chooses. Every blow of my life took place in spring. Each lasting sting. That's why Im afflicted by the green of the trees, the first peaches in the market, the light of flowing skirts that the women in my neighborhood start to wear. These things only remind me of loss, of betrayal, of disappointment. I dislike waking up and feeling pushed inevitably forward. But today, Saturday, I don't have to leave the house."

Whereabouts is translated by Jhumpra Lahiri from her own Italian language Dove mi trovo which predates the English, and which will make this eligible for the 2022 International Booker Prize. Sono rimasta molto colpita da questa lettura, non pensavo proprio di trovare pagine e pagine di totale e completa solitudine e melanconia.... Do original: “Self-translation affords a second act for a book, but in my opinion, this second act pertains less to the translated version than to the original, which is now readjusted and realigned thanks to the process of being dismantled and reassembled”. (LAHIRI, 2021b). Whereabouts - Dove mi trovo - my first foray into Jhumpa Lahiri’s work turned out to be her first novel she has written in Italian since she moved from the US to Rome, chose to leave English behind and to write exclusively in Italian instead. When I was reading the book (in Dutch), it had been published already in Italian, Spanish and Dutch, but not yet in English. Other than for her bilingual book In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri announced that this time she would self-translate her first novel written in Italian into English. In an interview she deemed ‘the idea of my own creation in Italian not having a life in English yet interesting’, assuming that for translating her book she 'will have to go into a place where she is two people’. In the meantime Lahiri published the English translation of her own book under the title Whereabouts.If you love people watching this is a perfect novel for you. The character’s ability to take us into their world and show us what they are seeing was seamlessly and flawlessly executed. I felt I was there experiencing life with the main character. It was like getting this inclusive intel into this person’s life, while it is not super life changing it gets increasingly interesting. The author’s ability to write about the ordinary things such as going to the pool and making it interesting is what got me. I was thoroughly invested.

Do original: “[...] nello stesso modo in cui poteva transformare un testo de una lingua a un’altra”. (LAHIRI, 2017, p. 66). A pleasant evening can be had spent in the company of this short novel, perhaps less a novel more a collection of observations. Delicate vignettes, entitled things like: "In the Sun", "Upon waking," "On the couch" and "At the cash register" give the reader a sense of the languid pace of the action ahead. Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and later received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College in 1989. She then received multiple degrees from Boston University: an M.A. in English, an M.A. in Creative Writing, an M.A. in Comparative Literature and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She took up a fellowship at Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center, which lasted for the next two years (1997-1998).The main parts of the story is made of the people the character met in her life. Weird, selfish, manipulative people and problematic parents. I only hope that she did not have in her heart that depressed vision if not jealous of the reality described there, otherwise Juhmpa, what a great woman you are!! The story is made up of fragments of other characters and taking life each day kind of scenarios which fill up the chapters. Il libro Dove mi trovo scritto da Lahiri, Jhumpa è composto da 163 pagine ed è stato pubblicato dall'editore Guanda. In che anno è stato pubblicato Dove mi trovo? The town, practically abandoned this afternoon, starts to drown in a piercing light. We're doubled over by a sharp wind and our eyes are filled with tears. We see the church at the top of the hill, and an ancient olive tree decorated with shiny red balls, in place of a Christmas tree. The higher we climb, the more we feel the wind and the cold. We're enfolded by the wide-open space, enclosed by all that emptiness."