I picked up this collection secondhand a month or so ago, and was excited because I’d just been approved for Lahiri’s latest collection on Netgalley. Now that I’ve read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Interpreter of Maladies, I’m even more looking forward to reading Roman Stories because Jhumpa Lahiri knows her way around a short story collection!

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There are 9 stories in this collection and I’d say 6/9 were very good to fantastic, and the other 3 were still well written but just didn’t make as much of an impact. Lahiri’s short stories have that feeling of being tiny little contained novels. I immediately felt situated with the new characters, as though I’d been reading about them for 100 pages, not 4. They mostly examine relationships in various forms (families, marriages, lodger/landlord, strangers) and migration. They all felt so real, like Lahiri could have been recounting episodes she’d lived.

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Some of my favourites were Mrs Sen (an Indian woman struggling to adjust to life in America babysits a young white boy who narrates), This Blessed House (a young couple find Christian paraphernalia all over their new home and it leads to complications in their marriage), and the titular Interpreter of Maladies. This last one gave that ‘sonder’ feeling (thanks for reminding me of the word @nodunayo!), where you look at a stranger and realise their lives are just as complex as yours. In this story, a tour guide who is infatuated with a client realises she’s far from who he assumed her to be. It feels wrong to not mention the other three stories I loved, so that should show you how strong a collection it is! Her writing is just beautiful, and I’m so intrigued by Roman Stories as for that one she’s written them initially in Italian and then translated them - gonna read it in September!

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Also did my first ever buddy read on @the.storygraph with Nadia for this one! Such a fun experience and maybe I won’t be such a lone wolf in my reading anymore?! Though no promises 😂