Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!

I had so much fun (relatively speaking, this is a pretty melancholy collection) reading the newest Jhumpa Lahiri collection on the back of Interpreter of Maladies last month! It was fascinating to see how her style has developed, especially as Roman Stories were initially written in Italian and translated into English by the author and Todd Portnowitz. I had my fingers crossed that there’d be an author/translator note at the end where she talks about the process of translating her own work as a bilingual author, but alas, there wasn’t one 😭 Maybe there will be in the finished copy!

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The themes of this collection are both similar and different to Interpreter of Maladies. It’s a more cohesive collection because all the stories are set in Rome and focus on people either born and raised in Rome or who have made Rome their home later on. I loved all the reflection on what makes a place a home, who gets to call a place home in some (bigoted) people’s eyes, and basically just Rome as a city. It’s not somewhere I’ve been but from this collection I’m thinking it’s a gorgeous city filled with history but it can also be quite unforgiving. There’s a lot of stories that centre around being a ‘foreigner’ living in Rome, and I thought they all brought something different to the table. Sometimes with themed collections you can feel like you’re being hit over the head with the ~message~ but not so here.

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The book is split into three sections, with 4 stories, then sort of interlinked vignettes, then 4 more stories. Looking back at my buddy read comments I left for Nadia @the.storygraph, it seems the first set of stories and the vignettes made the biggest impression on me! I especially loved the vignettes as it was interesting to see Rome through the eyes of such a varied group of people, based around one particular set of steps. I think my favourite story (and definitely the saddest of the lot) was Well-Lit House, where a man finds himself homeless after rightwing protestors and rising xenophobia force his family out of their flat.

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Overall, super cohesive collection, most of stories pack an emotional punch, and the writing feels clear and fresh in translation! I’m dying to know whether she thinks in English, then translates into Italian or what. I think this *might* be talked about in In Other Words so I’ll have to check that out!