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Translating Myself and Others
Luminous essays on translation and self-translation by an award-winning writer and literary translator
Translating Myself and Others is a collection of candid and disarmingly personal essays by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, who reflects on her emerging identity as a translator as well as a writer in two languages.
With subtlety and emotional immediacy, Lahiri draws on Ovid’s myth of Echo and Narcissus to explore the distinction between writing and translating, and provides a close reading of passages from Aristotle’s Poetics to talk more broadly about writing, desire, and freedom. She traces the theme of translation in Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks and takes up the question of Italo Calvino’s popularity as a translated author. Lahiri considers the unique challenge of translating her own work from Italian to English, the question “Why Italian?,” and the singular pleasures of translating contemporary and ancient writers.
Featuring essays originally written in Italian and published in English for the first time, as well as essays written in English, Translating Myself and Others brings together Lahiri’s most lyrical and eloquently observed meditations on the translator’s art as a sublime act of both linguistic and personal metamorphosis.
Translating Myself and Others is a collection of candid and disarmingly personal essays by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, who reflects on her emerging identity as a translator as well as a writer in two languages.
With subtlety and emotional immediacy, Lahiri draws on Ovid’s myth of Echo and Narcissus to explore the distinction between writing and translating, and provides a close reading of passages from Aristotle’s Poetics to talk more broadly about writing, desire, and freedom. She traces the theme of translation in Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks and takes up the question of Italo Calvino’s popularity as a translated author. Lahiri considers the unique challenge of translating her own work from Italian to English, the question “Why Italian?,” and the singular pleasures of translating contemporary and ancient writers.
Featuring essays originally written in Italian and published in English for the first time, as well as essays written in English, Translating Myself and Others brings together Lahiri’s most lyrical and eloquently observed meditations on the translator’s art as a sublime act of both linguistic and personal metamorphosis.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published May 17, 2022
285 people are currently reading
4478 people want to read
About the author
Jhumpa Lahiri
105 books14.5k followersNilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.
Her debut collection of short-stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was made into a major motion picture.
Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013) was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.
On January 22, 2015, Lahiri won the US$50,000 DSC Prize for Literature for The Lowland. In these works, Lahiri explored the Indian-immigrant experience in America.
In 2012, Lahiri moved to Rome, Italy and has since then published two books of essays, and began writing in Italian, first with the 2018 novel Dove mi trovo, then with her 2023 collection Roman Stories. She also compiled, edited, and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers. She has also translated some of her own writings and those of other authors from Italian into English.
In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022. In 2022, she became the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater, Barnard College of Columbia University.
Her debut collection of short-stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was made into a major motion picture.
Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013) was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.
On January 22, 2015, Lahiri won the US$50,000 DSC Prize for Literature for The Lowland. In these works, Lahiri explored the Indian-immigrant experience in America.
In 2012, Lahiri moved to Rome, Italy and has since then published two books of essays, and began writing in Italian, first with the 2018 novel Dove mi trovo, then with her 2023 collection Roman Stories. She also compiled, edited, and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers. She has also translated some of her own writings and those of other authors from Italian into English.
In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022. In 2022, she became the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater, Barnard College of Columbia University.
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July 2, 2022
“Translating Myself and Others is about translation…
….As a reader, (late bloomer reader- to boot), I found the entire topic an extraordinary experience eye-opening and educational.
Translation is something Jhumpa Lahiri has been thinking about for her entire life. She had been a translator before she was a writer. As a graduate student, for her master’s thesis, she translated some short stories by the great Bengali writer Ashapurna Devi.
Bengali is a language that she speaks but does not read with sophistication or ease.
Jhumpa was raised simultaneously in English and Bengali. So, she had really been translating all her life constantly for herself and others.
This current book gathers Jhumpa’s written thoughts about translation over the past seven years while teaching creative writing at Princeton. Before that she was living in Rome, where her linguisted landscape was transformed, and Italian emerged her.
In Italy she began writing directly in Italian (I remember) ….
I read “In Other Words” - translated in English.
The other books in English that I read were:
“Interpreter of Maladies”
“The Namsake”
“Unaccustomed Earth:Stories”
“The Lowland”
and
“Whereabouts”. (written first in Italian-then ‘she’ translated it into English)
It has me wondering if Jhumpa is going to translate any of her other Italian books— that I have ‘not’ read— into English. If she does, I’ll read them.
In 2015 after Jhumpa left Rome and began teaching at Princeton where she immediately and instinctively drawn to the world of translation.
She said: “It was in and among other languages at Princeton that I felt most at home”.
But then in 2019 she was back in Rome on sabbatical…
and wrote a book called “In Praise of Echo”— that grew out of the first literary translation workshop that she taught at Princeton.
She then became a translator for the author Domenico Starnone:
‘Lacci’ (which becomes Ties) ‘Scherzetto’ (Trick) and ‘Confidenza’ (Trust)
I’ve read the book ‘Ties’ and would still like to read ‘Trick’ and ‘Trust’.
It was interesting to learn what Jhumpa wrote about the word ‘Invece’ … it’s an Italian word — functioning as an adverb—that shows up often in Italian conversations and serves as an umbrella for words like ‘rather’, ‘contrary’, ‘however’, ‘meanwhile’, and ‘in fact’.
Having translated three of Domenico Starnone’s books —Jhumpa looked closely at interchangeable words.
She said:
“Based on my investigation of ‘invece’ across three languages, I now believe that this everyday Italian adverb is the metaphorical
underpinning of Starnone’s novel. For it ‘Ties’ is an act of containment and ‘Trick’ an innerplay of juxtaposition, ‘Trust’ probes and prioritizes substitution: an operation that not only permeates novel’s arc but describes the process of my bringing it to English. In other words I believe ‘invece’, a trigger for substitution, is a metaphor for translation itself”.
With this book Jhumpa reflects on her experience of translating Starnone’s novels… and others. (Gramsci, Calvino, etc.)
She discovered that many of the projects she worked on were by authors who were not merely authors themselves, but they too, also were translators.
Does anything about this book sound confusing? It’s not!! If yes- then blame me.
Jhumpa Lahiri makes things very clear.
A real joy for me. She even filled in puzzle pieces I had ‘about’ her.
I’ve always thought she was brilliant yet I questions some things when she first moved to Rome and worried for her family (like a mom)…. and goddamnit I just wanted her to write books an English so I could understand them!
I was more selfish about this than really looking at the bigger picture for what she was up to.
But every doubt I had a question I had got completely cleared up by reading this book.
It was interesting to learn that many Italian writers of the previous century devoted considerable amount of time and energy practicing and promoting the art of translation. Not only for promoting the art of the translation, or personal mentorship and influence, but for furthering the aesthetic and political mission of opening linguistic and cultural borders.
Personally I loved reading this book because I actually do like reading translated books. It opens me up to work that I may not have ever been able to read. And let’s face it I get tired of reading the same old things from only American authors.
So I found the whole process, and experience, that Jhumpa shared fascinating.
It gave me a richer appreciation for all that goes into the translating of books…many that I have enjoyed.
“What one writes in any given language typically remains as is, but translation pushes it to become otherwise”.
Hallelujah!
I liked it >> This book!!!
Ha… I feel so much smarter now 🥳
….As a reader, (late bloomer reader- to boot), I found the entire topic an extraordinary experience eye-opening and educational.
Translation is something Jhumpa Lahiri has been thinking about for her entire life. She had been a translator before she was a writer. As a graduate student, for her master’s thesis, she translated some short stories by the great Bengali writer Ashapurna Devi.
Bengali is a language that she speaks but does not read with sophistication or ease.
Jhumpa was raised simultaneously in English and Bengali. So, she had really been translating all her life constantly for herself and others.
This current book gathers Jhumpa’s written thoughts about translation over the past seven years while teaching creative writing at Princeton. Before that she was living in Rome, where her linguisted landscape was transformed, and Italian emerged her.
In Italy she began writing directly in Italian (I remember) ….
I read “In Other Words” - translated in English.
The other books in English that I read were:
“Interpreter of Maladies”
“The Namsake”
“Unaccustomed Earth:Stories”
“The Lowland”
and
“Whereabouts”. (written first in Italian-then ‘she’ translated it into English)
It has me wondering if Jhumpa is going to translate any of her other Italian books— that I have ‘not’ read— into English. If she does, I’ll read them.
In 2015 after Jhumpa left Rome and began teaching at Princeton where she immediately and instinctively drawn to the world of translation.
She said: “It was in and among other languages at Princeton that I felt most at home”.
But then in 2019 she was back in Rome on sabbatical…
and wrote a book called “In Praise of Echo”— that grew out of the first literary translation workshop that she taught at Princeton.
She then became a translator for the author Domenico Starnone:
‘Lacci’ (which becomes Ties) ‘Scherzetto’ (Trick) and ‘Confidenza’ (Trust)
I’ve read the book ‘Ties’ and would still like to read ‘Trick’ and ‘Trust’.
It was interesting to learn what Jhumpa wrote about the word ‘Invece’ … it’s an Italian word — functioning as an adverb—that shows up often in Italian conversations and serves as an umbrella for words like ‘rather’, ‘contrary’, ‘however’, ‘meanwhile’, and ‘in fact’.
Having translated three of Domenico Starnone’s books —Jhumpa looked closely at interchangeable words.
She said:
“Based on my investigation of ‘invece’ across three languages, I now believe that this everyday Italian adverb is the metaphorical
underpinning of Starnone’s novel. For it ‘Ties’ is an act of containment and ‘Trick’ an innerplay of juxtaposition, ‘Trust’ probes and prioritizes substitution: an operation that not only permeates novel’s arc but describes the process of my bringing it to English. In other words I believe ‘invece’, a trigger for substitution, is a metaphor for translation itself”.
With this book Jhumpa reflects on her experience of translating Starnone’s novels… and others. (Gramsci, Calvino, etc.)
She discovered that many of the projects she worked on were by authors who were not merely authors themselves, but they too, also were translators.
Does anything about this book sound confusing? It’s not!! If yes- then blame me.
Jhumpa Lahiri makes things very clear.
A real joy for me. She even filled in puzzle pieces I had ‘about’ her.
I’ve always thought she was brilliant yet I questions some things when she first moved to Rome and worried for her family (like a mom)…. and goddamnit I just wanted her to write books an English so I could understand them!
I was more selfish about this than really looking at the bigger picture for what she was up to.
But every doubt I had a question I had got completely cleared up by reading this book.
It was interesting to learn that many Italian writers of the previous century devoted considerable amount of time and energy practicing and promoting the art of translation. Not only for promoting the art of the translation, or personal mentorship and influence, but for furthering the aesthetic and political mission of opening linguistic and cultural borders.
Personally I loved reading this book because I actually do like reading translated books. It opens me up to work that I may not have ever been able to read. And let’s face it I get tired of reading the same old things from only American authors.
So I found the whole process, and experience, that Jhumpa shared fascinating.
It gave me a richer appreciation for all that goes into the translating of books…many that I have enjoyed.
“What one writes in any given language typically remains as is, but translation pushes it to become otherwise”.
Hallelujah!
I liked it >> This book!!!
Ha… I feel so much smarter now 🥳
June 12, 2022
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While I can’t quite satisfyingly articulate or express why I find such comfort in Jhumpa Lahiri's writing, I can certainly make a stab at it. In many ways, Translating Myself and Others reads like a companion piece to In Other Words, as Lahiri once again reflects on her relationship to languages, in particular, English and Italian, and the precarious act of literary translation. These essays are profoundly insightful, eloquently written, and erudite without being inaccessible. Lahiri’s illuminating meditations on writing and translating draw from her own personal experiences and from those of others, as many of the essays included in this collection expand on the works, ideas, and experiences of other authors and historical figures, many of whom Italian. Lahiri’s interrogation of their work, which hones in on their multilingualism and their own efforts with translation and self-translation, added an intratextual dimension to her essays, one that enriched her overall analysis. In many of these essays, Lahiri focuses in particular on her relationship to the Italian language: from the way people have questioned her choice to study this language and the validity of her written Italian, to the feelings brought about by writing in and speaking Italian.
In her speculations and contemplations on languages (who do they belong to? and if they do, to whom and why?), writing & translation Lahiri often refers to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in particular the myth of Echo and Narcissus. In examining the acts of translation and self-translation Lahiri utilizes many apt metaphors, viewing translating as a ‘door’, a form of ‘blindness’ (this one is a bit unahappy comparison to make), a ‘graft’, a ‘traversing’, an act of negotiation and metamorphoses. I also appreciated her contemplations on the function played by writers and translators, the differences and similarities between these two roles and the way their work is perceived or not.
Translating Myself and Others presents its readers with a panoply of thoughtful and thought-provoking essays. Lahiri’s writing struck me for its clarity and gracefulness and I look forward to revisiting the essays here collected in the future.
“Writing in another language reactivates the grief of being between two worlds, of being on the outside. Of feeling alone and excluded.”
While I can’t quite satisfyingly articulate or express why I find such comfort in Jhumpa Lahiri's writing, I can certainly make a stab at it. In many ways, Translating Myself and Others reads like a companion piece to In Other Words, as Lahiri once again reflects on her relationship to languages, in particular, English and Italian, and the precarious act of literary translation. These essays are profoundly insightful, eloquently written, and erudite without being inaccessible. Lahiri’s illuminating meditations on writing and translating draw from her own personal experiences and from those of others, as many of the essays included in this collection expand on the works, ideas, and experiences of other authors and historical figures, many of whom Italian. Lahiri’s interrogation of their work, which hones in on their multilingualism and their own efforts with translation and self-translation, added an intratextual dimension to her essays, one that enriched her overall analysis. In many of these essays, Lahiri focuses in particular on her relationship to the Italian language: from the way people have questioned her choice to study this language and the validity of her written Italian, to the feelings brought about by writing in and speaking Italian.
In her speculations and contemplations on languages (who do they belong to? and if they do, to whom and why?), writing & translation Lahiri often refers to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in particular the myth of Echo and Narcissus. In examining the acts of translation and self-translation Lahiri utilizes many apt metaphors, viewing translating as a ‘door’, a form of ‘blindness’ (this one is a bit unahappy comparison to make), a ‘graft’, a ‘traversing’, an act of negotiation and metamorphoses. I also appreciated her contemplations on the function played by writers and translators, the differences and similarities between these two roles and the way their work is perceived or not.
Translating Myself and Others presents its readers with a panoply of thoughtful and thought-provoking essays. Lahiri’s writing struck me for its clarity and gracefulness and I look forward to revisiting the essays here collected in the future.
September 6, 2022
This elegant and lapidary collection of essays on the art and conundrum of literary translation spoke to me on so many levels. As a writer, I felt Jhumpa Lahiri's thoughts on process, theme and reason like connective tissue between the hand and heart muscles:
As a scholar of French language and literature, I nearly wept in recognition of Lahiri's struggles and triumphs as she learned to express her essence in a newly-learned and beloved language:
But this slim collection of essays is focused on a very specific aspect of linguistic exploration: the misunderstood and undervalued craft of translation. What enriches these essays is Lahiri's perspective as a translator that is informed by her own writing. She explores the difference between inhabiting a narrative as the author and the consuming de-and reconstruction of the words and meaning as a translator.
Three of the essays focus on more technical aspects of translation relating to the Domenico Starnone novels Lahiri has translated — they are the novels' introductions and are reprinted here. The other pieces are more intimate reflections on Lahiri's own work or serve as explorations into the meaning of translation.
What I still wonder, which Jhumpa Lahiri ventures toward but never arrives at, is Why Italian, specifically. Her answer is a universal appreciation of doors opened by learning other languages, but she never addresses with any specificity her attraction to Italy or the Italian language.
I can, however, at least as it relates to my own experiences.
I had been in France for several months, attending a university in the foothills of the Alps, struggling mightily to discover who I was in this language and to convey the essence of myself. It was humbling, frustrating, an experience perhaps wasted on a 21-year-old. Later experiences living in France and studying the language revealed a more mature, confident speaker who wasn't humiliated by her stumbles. At any rate, I was also taking an Italian 101 class, learning Italian in French. It was my best class; it not only helped my French skills and my confidence, it brought me to Italy. And there, using my halting Italian, I found delight and acceptance that I was missing at the university in France, despite having years more study under my belt and a facility in speaking and comprehension in French that I of course did not have in Italian. Thus began my love affair with Italy and my desire to continue studying Italian.
I reconnected with that desire a few months ago, an out-of-the-blue realization that I put on a high shelf until I picked up this collection. Reading Lahiri, inspired by her passion for the language and her dedication to its study, I'm dusting off that shelved desire and trying to find the space in my life to carve out where I could fit in an Italian class.
A lovely exploration of what it means to be a writer, a reader, and to giving one's self up to another language, culture and way of seeing and interpreting the world.
Writing is a way to salvage life, to give it form and meaning. It exposes what we have hidden, unearths what we have neglected, misremembered, denied. It is a method of capturing, of pinning down, but it is also a form of truth, of liberation.
As a scholar of French language and literature, I nearly wept in recognition of Lahiri's struggles and triumphs as she learned to express her essence in a newly-learned and beloved language:
Confronting a foreign language as an adult is considerable challenge. And yet, the many doors I've had to open in Italian have flung wide, opening onto a sweeping, splendid view. The Italian language did not simply change my life; it gave me a second life, an extra life.This has been so true for me, as well: careers, travel, relationships- all the doors opened to me because of a degree and facility in French.
But this slim collection of essays is focused on a very specific aspect of linguistic exploration: the misunderstood and undervalued craft of translation. What enriches these essays is Lahiri's perspective as a translator that is informed by her own writing. She explores the difference between inhabiting a narrative as the author and the consuming de-and reconstruction of the words and meaning as a translator.
Three of the essays focus on more technical aspects of translation relating to the Domenico Starnone novels Lahiri has translated — they are the novels' introductions and are reprinted here. The other pieces are more intimate reflections on Lahiri's own work or serve as explorations into the meaning of translation.
What I still wonder, which Jhumpa Lahiri ventures toward but never arrives at, is Why Italian, specifically. Her answer is a universal appreciation of doors opened by learning other languages, but she never addresses with any specificity her attraction to Italy or the Italian language.
I can, however, at least as it relates to my own experiences.
I had been in France for several months, attending a university in the foothills of the Alps, struggling mightily to discover who I was in this language and to convey the essence of myself. It was humbling, frustrating, an experience perhaps wasted on a 21-year-old. Later experiences living in France and studying the language revealed a more mature, confident speaker who wasn't humiliated by her stumbles. At any rate, I was also taking an Italian 101 class, learning Italian in French. It was my best class; it not only helped my French skills and my confidence, it brought me to Italy. And there, using my halting Italian, I found delight and acceptance that I was missing at the university in France, despite having years more study under my belt and a facility in speaking and comprehension in French that I of course did not have in Italian. Thus began my love affair with Italy and my desire to continue studying Italian.
I reconnected with that desire a few months ago, an out-of-the-blue realization that I put on a high shelf until I picked up this collection. Reading Lahiri, inspired by her passion for the language and her dedication to its study, I'm dusting off that shelved desire and trying to find the space in my life to carve out where I could fit in an Italian class.
A lovely exploration of what it means to be a writer, a reader, and to giving one's self up to another language, culture and way of seeing and interpreting the world.
July 1, 2024
Here on the goodreads about me section, I write that I am a lifetime language learner. I love languages and pick them up relatively quickly. Other than English and Spanish and Portuguese only when I have someone to speak it with, I don’t really “know” other languages. Recently a sixth grade student told me that she speaks four languages fluently based on her upbringing. As Americans we have a way to go, so that is why I took two good years away from reading and studied German and Italian as well as some Russian on Duolingo. Combined with my working knowledge of Hebrew, one could say that I am a language connoisseur. Only I am not really a polyglot in the way that Jhumpa Lahiri is. Lahiri is one of those upper echelon writers I described when I outlined my yearly reading goals for the year. The child of immigrants, she became the first Indian American to win the Pulitzer Prize and this is after studying rudimentary Ancient Greek and Latin in college. Ten years ago, Lahiri sought new challenges in her life. Yes, she has been married to a native Italian speaker for years, but she wanted to literally speak his language. The natural thing to do: move to Rome. She has divided time between Italy and the United States for nearly ten years, becoming the polyglot that I dream of one day achieving. Her Translating Myself and Others is her ode to languages, a book that perhaps only language lovers can truly savor and appreciate.
There is a reason why Jhumpa Lahiri runs a translation workshop at Princeton and I feel most comfortable teaching Spanish to junior high school students. The woman casually discusses Ovid and Calvino; she is brilliant. For those people hoping for a memoir, there are snitches in some of these technical essays in which she relates where she was in the course of writing each paper. She wrote much of this work in an isolated library at Princeton during Covid, at a time where she only had the work of Domenico Stanone, Antonio Gramsci, and Ovid for comfort. A few years prior, she made the heart rending decision to leave Rome for Princeton, after immersing herself in Italian, leaving English behind. In the early days of her life as an Italian writer, Lahiri was reluctant to use English. Her early works in Italian were translated into other languages at first, but not English. At this point, she did not want her work to be doctored or chopped up in the language that she left behind, but then agreed to have other translators prepare En altre Paroli into English. After returning to the states and keeping one foot in each country, then Lahiri consented to translate her own work; this is after translating three of Stanone’s works into English and becoming more adept as a translator. My translating her own Dove mi trove into English, Lahiri allowed herself to keep one foot rooted in Italy even as she spent the majority of her isolation in a Princeton library. At this point in her life as a translator, she reconsidered her works in two languages as separate yet equally adept and sustainable. Dove mi trove and Whereabouts would be two distinct yet symbiotic works. Having read a side by side version of the novella, I can attest to some words losing meaning; however, what works in one language, might not in the other, hence the level of introspection to translate oneself.
Translating Myself and Others is not a slim volume to read for those hoping to experience the prose Lahiri left readers in The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies. She does name drop both novels here and provides glimpses of the prose that lead her to become a top name in literature that she is today. This volume is technical. The essays are personal but written for an academic audience who have some if not much linguistic background. As an undergraduate, Lahiri studied Latin. This was at a time in her life where Italian had not yet appeared on the radar. While a student, Lahiri fell in love with Ovid’s Metamorphoses. His work provides the backbone of this volume as she speaks of the triangulation of language between Latin, Italian, and English, citing multiple examples of language origin from Latin and Greek and how language got to be where it is today. As a young woman, Lahiri loved thesauri. As a language enthusiast, I do as well. What she notes is finding similar meanings of words in one language and across languages and patterns that emerge, the language nerd in me finding the entire account fascinating. The story she uses to explain language usage is that of Narcissus and Echo. If those words sound familiar to the pedestrian English speaker it is because that is how the words narcissus and echo eventually found their way into the English language. Even though I have studied rudimentary Italian and could teach the basics in Latin I, Ovid seems to be a daunting task to me. Lahiri is currently translating a modern version of Metamorphoses alongside a colleague. Once this capstone work is complete, I may undertake reading it. As I have learned in my reading life, the translation is everything to bring a literary work from point a to point b.
Lahiri notes that she wrote the bulk of these essays in 2020-21 in isolation. Her mother neared the end of her life and Ovid provided a balm for her along with the novels of her colleague Stanone and Calvino as well as the complete letters of Gramsci. Italian is Lahiri’s third language and yet she has adopted it as her own. She states that knowing multiple languages allows a speaker to glean words and instances from one language that might not be present in another. Rather than using the term lost in translation, Lahiri encourages the average reader to learn multiple languages and utilize all of them at the appropriate times in one’s life. If only I was twenty six years younger and had 21st century technology available to me, I would desire to be a student at Princeton and enroll in Lahiri’s language course. She is brilliant, code switching from one language to the next without thinking about what language to use. I have been told that once a person acquires four languages, it facilitates the acquisition of additional languages, hence how she can speak Bengali, English, Italian, and to a certain extent Latin and Greek. If anyone needed that last push to learn another language, this slim volume is it. Then a people can say that you speak their language, the way Romans note that Lahiri parla nossa lingua. The idea is ever so tempting.
A year ago I gave up Duolingo finding the app to be geared toward teenagers rather than adults interested in the lifelong learning of multiple languages. I would finish the lessons in one language and move on to the next. A year later, if exposed to these languages, only a few words stand out. If I ever had the impetus to go back to language acquisition, Translating Myself and Others is it. I too could read Italo Calvino and translate Ovid without the aid of multiple dictionaries and thesauri. While this is a goal that Jhumpa Lahiri attained and I would love to aspire to, it is not for the average person. I hear English and Spanish on a daily basis, other language immersion is not currently achievable. I will stick to my yearly goal of reading the masters who are considered to be in the upper echelon of their craft as writers, perhaps including Calvino and a translation of Ovid if I can. Jhumpa Lahiri is most definitely a master of her craft in any language, one of my literary (s)heroes.
4.5 stars
There is a reason why Jhumpa Lahiri runs a translation workshop at Princeton and I feel most comfortable teaching Spanish to junior high school students. The woman casually discusses Ovid and Calvino; she is brilliant. For those people hoping for a memoir, there are snitches in some of these technical essays in which she relates where she was in the course of writing each paper. She wrote much of this work in an isolated library at Princeton during Covid, at a time where she only had the work of Domenico Stanone, Antonio Gramsci, and Ovid for comfort. A few years prior, she made the heart rending decision to leave Rome for Princeton, after immersing herself in Italian, leaving English behind. In the early days of her life as an Italian writer, Lahiri was reluctant to use English. Her early works in Italian were translated into other languages at first, but not English. At this point, she did not want her work to be doctored or chopped up in the language that she left behind, but then agreed to have other translators prepare En altre Paroli into English. After returning to the states and keeping one foot in each country, then Lahiri consented to translate her own work; this is after translating three of Stanone’s works into English and becoming more adept as a translator. My translating her own Dove mi trove into English, Lahiri allowed herself to keep one foot rooted in Italy even as she spent the majority of her isolation in a Princeton library. At this point in her life as a translator, she reconsidered her works in two languages as separate yet equally adept and sustainable. Dove mi trove and Whereabouts would be two distinct yet symbiotic works. Having read a side by side version of the novella, I can attest to some words losing meaning; however, what works in one language, might not in the other, hence the level of introspection to translate oneself.
Translating Myself and Others is not a slim volume to read for those hoping to experience the prose Lahiri left readers in The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies. She does name drop both novels here and provides glimpses of the prose that lead her to become a top name in literature that she is today. This volume is technical. The essays are personal but written for an academic audience who have some if not much linguistic background. As an undergraduate, Lahiri studied Latin. This was at a time in her life where Italian had not yet appeared on the radar. While a student, Lahiri fell in love with Ovid’s Metamorphoses. His work provides the backbone of this volume as she speaks of the triangulation of language between Latin, Italian, and English, citing multiple examples of language origin from Latin and Greek and how language got to be where it is today. As a young woman, Lahiri loved thesauri. As a language enthusiast, I do as well. What she notes is finding similar meanings of words in one language and across languages and patterns that emerge, the language nerd in me finding the entire account fascinating. The story she uses to explain language usage is that of Narcissus and Echo. If those words sound familiar to the pedestrian English speaker it is because that is how the words narcissus and echo eventually found their way into the English language. Even though I have studied rudimentary Italian and could teach the basics in Latin I, Ovid seems to be a daunting task to me. Lahiri is currently translating a modern version of Metamorphoses alongside a colleague. Once this capstone work is complete, I may undertake reading it. As I have learned in my reading life, the translation is everything to bring a literary work from point a to point b.
Lahiri notes that she wrote the bulk of these essays in 2020-21 in isolation. Her mother neared the end of her life and Ovid provided a balm for her along with the novels of her colleague Stanone and Calvino as well as the complete letters of Gramsci. Italian is Lahiri’s third language and yet she has adopted it as her own. She states that knowing multiple languages allows a speaker to glean words and instances from one language that might not be present in another. Rather than using the term lost in translation, Lahiri encourages the average reader to learn multiple languages and utilize all of them at the appropriate times in one’s life. If only I was twenty six years younger and had 21st century technology available to me, I would desire to be a student at Princeton and enroll in Lahiri’s language course. She is brilliant, code switching from one language to the next without thinking about what language to use. I have been told that once a person acquires four languages, it facilitates the acquisition of additional languages, hence how she can speak Bengali, English, Italian, and to a certain extent Latin and Greek. If anyone needed that last push to learn another language, this slim volume is it. Then a people can say that you speak their language, the way Romans note that Lahiri parla nossa lingua. The idea is ever so tempting.
A year ago I gave up Duolingo finding the app to be geared toward teenagers rather than adults interested in the lifelong learning of multiple languages. I would finish the lessons in one language and move on to the next. A year later, if exposed to these languages, only a few words stand out. If I ever had the impetus to go back to language acquisition, Translating Myself and Others is it. I too could read Italo Calvino and translate Ovid without the aid of multiple dictionaries and thesauri. While this is a goal that Jhumpa Lahiri attained and I would love to aspire to, it is not for the average person. I hear English and Spanish on a daily basis, other language immersion is not currently achievable. I will stick to my yearly goal of reading the masters who are considered to be in the upper echelon of their craft as writers, perhaps including Calvino and a translation of Ovid if I can. Jhumpa Lahiri is most definitely a master of her craft in any language, one of my literary (s)heroes.
4.5 stars
August 5, 2022
• TRANSLATING MYSELF AND OTHERS by Jhumpa Lahiri, various essays translated from Italian by the author in collaboration with Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, and Molly L. O'Brien, 2022.
✍🏼 When I read Lahiri's 2015 work IN OTHER WORDS, I left with a strange sense that still defies description & diagnosis.
I've thought back to it several times - interrogating my own feelings on it: her declaration to no longer write in English (ever!) but to fully embrace Italian as her language of expression.
Quickly learned in the opening essay ("Why Italian?") of this book of essays that I wasn't the only one that felt that odd sense. Lahiri ruffled a lot of feathers, perhaps specifically that of critics & Italian literati.
Gatekeeping, "you can't be serious?", Who owns a language? etc.
She seems to take the criticism in stride. She discusses how her decision has morphed since that earlier time. Seven years since that publication and the blade has dulled a bit; no more declarations of Italian-only, but she remains devoted and now pours her considerable skill and insight into translation work.
The odd sense I had earlier evaporated, and more than anything, I felt genuinely happy for her, finding this new form of herself through study.
TRANSLATING contains the Introductions and more details of her recent Italian to English translations of 3 Domenico Starnone novels: Lacci / Ties, Scherzetto / Tricks, and Confidenza/ Trust. Lahiri goes into the decision to self-translate her first Italian original (Dove mi trovo / Whereabouts) novel into English, another on the optative case (srsly!), Antonio Gramsci, and her ongoing translation collaboration for Ovid's Metamorphosis from Latin to English with classicist Yelena Baraz.
✨Highlight essays:
• "In Praise of Echo: Reflections on the Meaning of Translation", 2019.
• "Calvino Abroad", 2021.
• "Afterword / Translating Transformation: Ovid", 2021.
Left this one wanting to read her Starnone translations, and dig into more Calvino (been saying that for awhile...). That Ovid project sounds pretty fantastic - read it in university and I can only imagine this translation will be 🔥 whenever it is complete!
✍🏼 When I read Lahiri's 2015 work IN OTHER WORDS, I left with a strange sense that still defies description & diagnosis.
I've thought back to it several times - interrogating my own feelings on it: her declaration to no longer write in English (ever!) but to fully embrace Italian as her language of expression.
Quickly learned in the opening essay ("Why Italian?") of this book of essays that I wasn't the only one that felt that odd sense. Lahiri ruffled a lot of feathers, perhaps specifically that of critics & Italian literati.
Gatekeeping, "you can't be serious?", Who owns a language? etc.
She seems to take the criticism in stride. She discusses how her decision has morphed since that earlier time. Seven years since that publication and the blade has dulled a bit; no more declarations of Italian-only, but she remains devoted and now pours her considerable skill and insight into translation work.
The odd sense I had earlier evaporated, and more than anything, I felt genuinely happy for her, finding this new form of herself through study.
TRANSLATING contains the Introductions and more details of her recent Italian to English translations of 3 Domenico Starnone novels: Lacci / Ties, Scherzetto / Tricks, and Confidenza/ Trust. Lahiri goes into the decision to self-translate her first Italian original (Dove mi trovo / Whereabouts) novel into English, another on the optative case (srsly!), Antonio Gramsci, and her ongoing translation collaboration for Ovid's Metamorphosis from Latin to English with classicist Yelena Baraz.
✨Highlight essays:
• "In Praise of Echo: Reflections on the Meaning of Translation", 2019.
• "Calvino Abroad", 2021.
• "Afterword / Translating Transformation: Ovid", 2021.
Left this one wanting to read her Starnone translations, and dig into more Calvino (been saying that for awhile...). That Ovid project sounds pretty fantastic - read it in university and I can only imagine this translation will be 🔥 whenever it is complete!
September 21, 2022
جومبا لاهيري كاتبة رائعة ومفضلة، وكتابها هذا لمسني بشكل مختلف، ربما لأنه يتحدث عن الترجمة وربما لأنه يتحدث عن اللغات وتجربتنا الشخصية معها وربما لأسباب أخرى.
March 25, 2025
i stumbled on this book at barnes & noble the other day and picked it up on a whim since i'm in the process of learning about translated lit and i LOVED this!!! it's such a unique perspective - a woman who grew up learning multiple languages (bengali & english) but decided in her 40s to start an entirely new language (italian) who now has translated multiple works - and i thought these essays were so brilliantly composed. they're such a wonderful exploration of language - whether that's Language or language - and it gave me so much to consider for my own reading and writing. (it also reminded me that i absolutely want to spend my thirties prioritizing german as a language but that's for another day...) there were some really interesting italian authors mentioned in here - starnone, gramsci, calvino, romano - and even though i doubt i'll pick up all of them, i found myself entranced by how they impacted lahiri, and i definitely would be interested in reading their works too.
highly recommend if you're interested in translation, but i also just recommend it if you enjoy reading or writing or language in general!
“Containers may be the destiny of many in that they hold our remains after death. But this novel reminds us that narrative refuses to stay put, and that the effort of telling stories only pins things down so far. In the end it is language itself that is the most problematic container; it holds too much and too little at the same time.”
highly recommend if you're interested in translation, but i also just recommend it if you enjoy reading or writing or language in general!
“Containers may be the destiny of many in that they hold our remains after death. But this novel reminds us that narrative refuses to stay put, and that the effort of telling stories only pins things down so far. In the end it is language itself that is the most problematic container; it holds too much and too little at the same time.”
September 6, 2022
The topic is interesting, but this book wasn't and in fact I don't think it should have been published. The essays it is made up of are self-referential and superficial, and largely content free. Overall it struck me as a strange attempt to show off by the author, who for some reason decided to start writing fiction in Italian after learning it in her 40s (very few authors have been able to succeed at writing in a second or third language like this) and then was engaged not only as a translator (Italian -> English) but also to lecture in translation at Princeton, despite having apparently had no training in translation.
A lot of the points she makes are really obvious - I did not need two pages on the difference between "lingua" and "lingue", and I would have been ashamed to put my name to the observation - in print - that you can rearrange the letters in Ovid to make "void"- others are just tedious, as in the self-propagating comments on reading herself in translation or dictionary entries on different meanings for words.
I may be biased because I am bilingual, speak several languages, and can read Italian reasonably well, but I don't think this constitutes a book. Luckily it's very short and I was able to get through it quickly (I was definitely reading at my fastest non-skimming setting). Much more interesting books about language and translation exist.
A lot of the points she makes are really obvious - I did not need two pages on the difference between "lingua" and "lingue", and I would have been ashamed to put my name to the observation - in print - that you can rearrange the letters in Ovid to make "void"- others are just tedious, as in the self-propagating comments on reading herself in translation or dictionary entries on different meanings for words.
I may be biased because I am bilingual, speak several languages, and can read Italian reasonably well, but I don't think this constitutes a book. Luckily it's very short and I was able to get through it quickly (I was definitely reading at my fastest non-skimming setting). Much more interesting books about language and translation exist.
Read
July 14, 2022I'm not smart enough for this book. Too much "big brain energy". Detailed review coming soon though.
June 24, 2022
This was not a bad book, that's not why I gave it two stars. I liked it and clearly Jhumpa Lahiri is mega talented. This book is rather academic (read: chock full of information and ideas, but somewhat dry) and would be a great read for university students and professors. But to read it as a simple diversion to daily life, well... not incredibly entertaining but I probably would have found it more compelling if I were a professional translator. Here are my notes...
Lahari now teaches creative writing and translation at Princeton.
Introduction
Jhumpa has translated only one of her own works. The following chapters are a series of essays in chronological order (over a period of 7 years) about how her thinking translation of English to Italian and back from project to project has evolved and changed.
“Translation has transformed my relational to writing. It shows me how to work with new words, how to experiment with new styles and forms, how to take great risks, how to structure my sentences in different ways.” Reading already does this, but translation goes under the skin and establishes new rhythms and exposes new solutions in revelatory ways.
“To be a writer - translator is to value both being and becoming. What one writes in any given language typically remains as is but translation pushes it to become otherwise thanks to translation. The act of one text becoming another. The conversation I've been seeking to have with literature for much of my life now feels more complete, more harmonious, far richer with possibilities. Before I engage seriously with translation, something in my life as a writer was missing. At this point I can no longer imagine not working on a translation just as I cannot imagine not working on or thinking of working on my own writing. I think of writing and translation as two aspects of the same activity. Two faces of the same coin or maybe two strokes exercising distinct but complementary strengths that allow me to swim greater distances and at greater depths through the mysterious element of language.”
Chapter 1
“I am a writer without a true mother tongue - linguistically orphaned.”
“In order to conquer any foreign language one needs to open two principal doors. The first is comprehension. The second the spoken language. In between there are smaller doors equally relevant: syntax, grammar, vocabulary, nuances of meaning, pronunciation… at this point one gains relative mastery. In my case I dare to open a third door: the written language. Bit by bit as one studies, the door to comprehension swings open. The spoken language apart from a foreign accent and some mispronunciations here and there also opens with relative ease. The written language is certainly the most formidable door, remains ajar… Writing in another language reactivates the grief of being between two worlds of being on the outside and feeling alone and excluded.”
Chapter 5
How to put a short story together: see Ernest Hemingway’s “Cat in the Rain”
Afterword
On her mother’s death: (inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphosis) Death is not the end, but the transformation into something else. “She’s not dying as much as becoming something else.”
Lahari now teaches creative writing and translation at Princeton.
Introduction
Jhumpa has translated only one of her own works. The following chapters are a series of essays in chronological order (over a period of 7 years) about how her thinking translation of English to Italian and back from project to project has evolved and changed.
“Translation has transformed my relational to writing. It shows me how to work with new words, how to experiment with new styles and forms, how to take great risks, how to structure my sentences in different ways.” Reading already does this, but translation goes under the skin and establishes new rhythms and exposes new solutions in revelatory ways.
“To be a writer - translator is to value both being and becoming. What one writes in any given language typically remains as is but translation pushes it to become otherwise thanks to translation. The act of one text becoming another. The conversation I've been seeking to have with literature for much of my life now feels more complete, more harmonious, far richer with possibilities. Before I engage seriously with translation, something in my life as a writer was missing. At this point I can no longer imagine not working on a translation just as I cannot imagine not working on or thinking of working on my own writing. I think of writing and translation as two aspects of the same activity. Two faces of the same coin or maybe two strokes exercising distinct but complementary strengths that allow me to swim greater distances and at greater depths through the mysterious element of language.”
Chapter 1
“I am a writer without a true mother tongue - linguistically orphaned.”
“In order to conquer any foreign language one needs to open two principal doors. The first is comprehension. The second the spoken language. In between there are smaller doors equally relevant: syntax, grammar, vocabulary, nuances of meaning, pronunciation… at this point one gains relative mastery. In my case I dare to open a third door: the written language. Bit by bit as one studies, the door to comprehension swings open. The spoken language apart from a foreign accent and some mispronunciations here and there also opens with relative ease. The written language is certainly the most formidable door, remains ajar… Writing in another language reactivates the grief of being between two worlds of being on the outside and feeling alone and excluded.”
Chapter 5
How to put a short story together: see Ernest Hemingway’s “Cat in the Rain”
Afterword
On her mother’s death: (inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphosis) Death is not the end, but the transformation into something else. “She’s not dying as much as becoming something else.”
September 14, 2023
Jhumpa, I paid a library fine for this. You owe me.
If I were at Princeton and I realized that Jhumpa Lahiri would be teaching me something, I would have blindly signed up for that course. And then this book would have been handed to me at the start of the semester and I would have spent lectures faffing around on my phone, only to make intermittent eye contact with her, mentally zoned out.
How a fiction writer whose prose revels in the charm of the minutiae of life can produce such a dull, coma-inducing collection of essays is beyond me. I could not believe the level of pedantry in the book, going on and on about the origin of words in Italian and English. It felt like a parody of academia gone too far.
I suppose that the right audience for this would have been graduate students of linguistics ("Graduate students are the worst." -Jack Donaghy and Liz Lemon) who throw in terms like post-modern and metaphysical in mundane conversations. Anyone else is likely to struggle.
Jhumpa, Imma pretend this book didn't happen.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm sorry to say but Jhumpa Lahiri positively bored me through these 10 essays on translating books, all of which seemed like they came out of a course material for a dull, jargon filled college course in Princeton. They had none of the charm or warmth that I have read, and have come to associate with her fiction. Very glad it was a library issued title and not a personal purchase.
If I were at Princeton and I realized that Jhumpa Lahiri would be teaching me something, I would have blindly signed up for that course. And then this book would have been handed to me at the start of the semester and I would have spent lectures faffing around on my phone, only to make intermittent eye contact with her, mentally zoned out.
How a fiction writer whose prose revels in the charm of the minutiae of life can produce such a dull, coma-inducing collection of essays is beyond me. I could not believe the level of pedantry in the book, going on and on about the origin of words in Italian and English. It felt like a parody of academia gone too far.
I suppose that the right audience for this would have been graduate students of linguistics ("Graduate students are the worst." -Jack Donaghy and Liz Lemon) who throw in terms like post-modern and metaphysical in mundane conversations. Anyone else is likely to struggle.
Jhumpa, Imma pretend this book didn't happen.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm sorry to say but Jhumpa Lahiri positively bored me through these 10 essays on translating books, all of which seemed like they came out of a course material for a dull, jargon filled college course in Princeton. They had none of the charm or warmth that I have read, and have come to associate with her fiction. Very glad it was a library issued title and not a personal purchase.
December 7, 2022
"You're of Indian origin, were born in London, raised in America. You write books in English. What does Italian have to do with any of that?" (Chapter 1)
When I read Jhumpa Lahiri's translation of Domenico Starnone's Ties in 2018, I asked that very question (and others). Why Italian? Why is she translating someone else's work?
Listening to Lahiri's Translating Myself and Others answers these and other questions about translation. Clearly, the translation process is not as straightforward and easy as I had imagined. How do you choose among different meanings of a word? How do you find another in a different language that carries the same meanings (and baggage) as in the author's language? How do you handle the author's (intentional?) repetition of a word or alliteration? When an author such as Ovid uses multiple names for the same character, how do you maintain clarity? How do you describe sexual violence in 21st century language? These are thorny questions for Lahiri, who must end up with highly annotated originals and well-thumbed dictionaries and thesauri?
I love watching anyone do something that they are highly skilled at. Lahiri was no exception here.
Lahiri discussed the difficulties and joys of self-translation (Dove mi trovo): "Italian translation, for me, has always been a way to maintain contact with the language I love when I am far away from it. To translate is to alter one’s linguistic coordinates, to grab on to what has slipped away, to cope with exile" (Chapter 6). For her, though, it was also a way of further exploring the text, of noting errors, and ultimately revising the original Italian.
"Reading, writing, and living in Italian, I feel like a reader, a writer, a person who is more attentive, active, and curious." (Chapter 1)
Lahiri includes frequent Italian or Latin quotations, which I would have glanced at or skipped over if I had read this as text. She has a lovely voice and her Italian made clear why she would fall in love with this language – I doubt that many who listen to English are converted.
By the end of Translating Myself and Others I was (unskillfully) translating with her and paying attention to the process of translation in my daily life.
When I read Jhumpa Lahiri's translation of Domenico Starnone's Ties in 2018, I asked that very question (and others). Why Italian? Why is she translating someone else's work?
Listening to Lahiri's Translating Myself and Others answers these and other questions about translation. Clearly, the translation process is not as straightforward and easy as I had imagined. How do you choose among different meanings of a word? How do you find another in a different language that carries the same meanings (and baggage) as in the author's language? How do you handle the author's (intentional?) repetition of a word or alliteration? When an author such as Ovid uses multiple names for the same character, how do you maintain clarity? How do you describe sexual violence in 21st century language? These are thorny questions for Lahiri, who must end up with highly annotated originals and well-thumbed dictionaries and thesauri?
I love watching anyone do something that they are highly skilled at. Lahiri was no exception here.
Lahiri discussed the difficulties and joys of self-translation (Dove mi trovo): "Italian translation, for me, has always been a way to maintain contact with the language I love when I am far away from it. To translate is to alter one’s linguistic coordinates, to grab on to what has slipped away, to cope with exile" (Chapter 6). For her, though, it was also a way of further exploring the text, of noting errors, and ultimately revising the original Italian.
"Reading, writing, and living in Italian, I feel like a reader, a writer, a person who is more attentive, active, and curious." (Chapter 1)
Lahiri includes frequent Italian or Latin quotations, which I would have glanced at or skipped over if I had read this as text. She has a lovely voice and her Italian made clear why she would fall in love with this language – I doubt that many who listen to English are converted.
By the end of Translating Myself and Others I was (unskillfully) translating with her and paying attention to the process of translation in my daily life.
March 4, 2024
captivating AND useful for class? you would not think it true
January 28, 2025
really poignant, beautiful collection of essays about jhumpa lahiri's relatively recent decision to begin writing in italian. from there, she began translating other authors' (domenico starnone, in particular) works from italian into english, before translating her own writing from italian to english. she also shares various thoughts on other italian writers (e.g., ferrante, gramsci, calvino).
one thread throughout the book that i enjoyed following was the repeated reference to ovid's metamorphoses. one (very effective, imo) essay likens the process of translation to the myth of echo and narcissus. lahiri later describes how she began her project with yelena baraz to produce a new english translation of metamorphoses, and how lahiri's study of italian has changed her relationship to the original latin text. and there is a moving passage at the end of the book where lahiri describes how thinking about metamorphoses helped her understand the passage from life to death -- something sadly too relevant when she was writing at the height of COVID.
in the first essay, where lahiri explains why she moved to rome at age 45 and to study italian "without any obvious connections -- familial, personal, or professional," she says: "Why Italian? In order to develop another pair of eyes, in order to experiment with weakness." i love books that similarly give you look at the world differently, that change the way you think. this is one of those books for me. time to crack on with my chinese language studies :p
one thread throughout the book that i enjoyed following was the repeated reference to ovid's metamorphoses. one (very effective, imo) essay likens the process of translation to the myth of echo and narcissus. lahiri later describes how she began her project with yelena baraz to produce a new english translation of metamorphoses, and how lahiri's study of italian has changed her relationship to the original latin text. and there is a moving passage at the end of the book where lahiri describes how thinking about metamorphoses helped her understand the passage from life to death -- something sadly too relevant when she was writing at the height of COVID.
in the first essay, where lahiri explains why she moved to rome at age 45 and to study italian "without any obvious connections -- familial, personal, or professional," she says: "Why Italian? In order to develop another pair of eyes, in order to experiment with weakness." i love books that similarly give you look at the world differently, that change the way you think. this is one of those books for me. time to crack on with my chinese language studies :p
September 24, 2022
Jhumpa Lahiri is a fine writer and an intelligent person, who is thoughtful about her craft. Even with the explanations given in this book, her decision to start writing her novels in Italian remains a bit of a puzzle to me, but I don't need to understand her motivations to appreciate that her writing in a non-native language has had some interesting impacts that leave visible traces even when her work in Italian is translated back into English. It's also clear that her being a writer affects her thought process and choices when she works as a translator of the works of others. Many of her thoughts about about translating have analogues in illustrating a book or in adapting a book for film or television. Any sort of addition to a book or an adaptation creates issues around the relationship of the translator/illustrator/adaptor to the underlying work and its author. How do you capture the essence of particular forms of expression? How do you retain the heart of the work in way that will be understood by a new audience? How is your own understanding of the original work changed and enhanced by becoming a co-conspirator with the original author in the creative process? How is the translator's relationship with the two languages affected by the translation process? How much of Ms. Lahiri's experience of these matters is personal to her and how much of it is a manifestation of general qualities of the process of translation? There are smart thoughts about all of these questions in this book, but I think that the answers are often dependent on circumstances so that it is hard to generalize.
December 8, 2022
More of a 3.5 but I’m rounding up.
This was an interesting look at the author’s relationship to languages and her journey with translation. As someone who has been trying to understand more about the art of translation and read translated works, I found this quite thought provoking.
This was an interesting look at the author’s relationship to languages and her journey with translation. As someone who has been trying to understand more about the art of translation and read translated works, I found this quite thought provoking.
August 31, 2023
Women in Translation month!
August 27, 2024
women in translation, gotta be one of my favorite genders
September 14, 2022
This is for sure Lahiri’s most academic publication so far and for that reason I almost gave it 4 stars. There isn’t the level of relatability of a Maggie Nelson essay collection, though there are human moments that help you connect to her, but who else could write a collection of essays about translating, something I don’t have any experience or real interest in, and make it engaging through the sheer size of her passion for the subject? I won’t be looking at translated texts the same ever again. I can only imagine how good this book must be if you are interested and able to translate.
June 2, 2022
This book is a must read for anyone who studies multiple languages or has an interest in the meaning of our words. the language in this book was not only beautiful but thought provoking. as someone who is a classics student and understands the difficulty and joy of translating ancient greek and latin, i appreciated how this book brought a voice to the art of translation.
July 27, 2022
This is a remarkable book. Lahiri is undoubtedly a great writer.
June 19, 2025
“A language, and by extension a culture, or a nation, that flees its echoes is a culture that is turned inward, in love with itself, or with the idea of itself.”
Lahiri’s expertise in classics, devotion to Italian, and Pulitzer Prize-winning background shine through in the analytical essays of this collection. Reflections on how the Italian language changed during the rise of fascism helped me think through how I can engage with translation and language in the U.S. today. She underscores through Gramsci and Calvino that translation respects that at its core, language is always changing and that “true literature is works along the untranslatable margins” (Calvino). I LOVE this part:
"All too often, the concept of translation (not unlike language) is stripped of its political content and used to cast a vaguely positive glow of acceptance, accessibility, and interest in things 'other.' For Gramsci, in contrast, translation is always political and related to questions of revolution." (Lahiri quoting Peter Ives and Rocco Lacorte, essay 8)
The essays are super accessible, and I learned a lot more about classic texts and Latin roots than I ever expected! My one critique is that my frustrations with her book “In Altere Parole” resurfaced — in trying to clearly explain translation, Lahiri uses an overwhelming number of metaphors. Her analysis is so phenomenal that I wish she had chosen a couple instead and really developed them. Anyway, I can’t stop thinking about how lucky we are to have such a great writer so devoted to advocating for and sharing translation.
Lahiri’s expertise in classics, devotion to Italian, and Pulitzer Prize-winning background shine through in the analytical essays of this collection. Reflections on how the Italian language changed during the rise of fascism helped me think through how I can engage with translation and language in the U.S. today. She underscores through Gramsci and Calvino that translation respects that at its core, language is always changing and that “true literature is works along the untranslatable margins” (Calvino). I LOVE this part:
"All too often, the concept of translation (not unlike language) is stripped of its political content and used to cast a vaguely positive glow of acceptance, accessibility, and interest in things 'other.' For Gramsci, in contrast, translation is always political and related to questions of revolution." (Lahiri quoting Peter Ives and Rocco Lacorte, essay 8)
The essays are super accessible, and I learned a lot more about classic texts and Latin roots than I ever expected! My one critique is that my frustrations with her book “In Altere Parole” resurfaced — in trying to clearly explain translation, Lahiri uses an overwhelming number of metaphors. Her analysis is so phenomenal that I wish she had chosen a couple instead and really developed them. Anyway, I can’t stop thinking about how lucky we are to have such a great writer so devoted to advocating for and sharing translation.
July 22, 2025
*4.5. Lahiri’s writing is genius and world class as always. I was drawn to some of these essays more than others. There are moments where Lahiri gets familiar, bordering on biographical, and there are others where she veers into academic stiffness and tangles. Because of the latter I can’t recommend this collection as widely as I would’ve liked, but I do think her insights on translation are interesting to both appreciators and practitioners of the craft.
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April 1, 2025deft work!
August 20, 2024
I love Jhumpa Lahiri but would have enjoyed this more if I knew Italian.
April 17, 2023
3.5/5 STARS
~~THOUGHTS: WHAT I LIKED~~
One word review: Fascinated.
I have read almost all of Jhumpa Lahiri’s books, but after reading this book, I have a newfound intimidation of her genius. Reading these essays you really get the sense of the real her. The way her brain works, the way she thinks, how she picks one aspect of language or writing or grammar or translation and then references it across multiple literary works. It’s mind blowing. She is just rolling with it with such charm and flare.
Secondly, reading this book has made me so respectful of translators. I read a lot of translated literature. I always know the author but don’t always know the translator. From now on, I’m going to be more mindful to find out about the translator and their work. Writing comes straight from your head but it’s always inspired by something that already exists. But translating is a tough world of its own because one Italian word can mean multiple things and how amazing and fun and interesting it is to get to that right word with respect to the context. But also it is such a tough job to get it right.
~~THOUGHTS: WHAT I DID NOT LIKE~~
Whatever I did understand was enrapturing and also made me think of pursuing a PhD in Literature but there was also a lot I did not understand. Straight over the head. At times, the content felt like a grammar lesson. At other times, it felt like a boring documentary in the written format. Some times, it felt like Lahiri low key fangirling over her favorite writers and translators. And some content I simply thought was a bit much. For most of it, this felt like the kind of book people studying literature or translation should read.
In Chapter 4, she mentions how a man reviewed her Introduction to a book she had translated as “energy-sapping intellectualization.” I can’t help but agree to that description for some essays of the book.
With its ups and downs, I’m still glad I read this because I learnt quite a lot and got an insight into a translator’s life. I have rated Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri at 3.5/5 stars!
Full Review: Mindscape in Words
~~THOUGHTS: WHAT I LIKED~~
One word review: Fascinated.
I have read almost all of Jhumpa Lahiri’s books, but after reading this book, I have a newfound intimidation of her genius. Reading these essays you really get the sense of the real her. The way her brain works, the way she thinks, how she picks one aspect of language or writing or grammar or translation and then references it across multiple literary works. It’s mind blowing. She is just rolling with it with such charm and flare.
Secondly, reading this book has made me so respectful of translators. I read a lot of translated literature. I always know the author but don’t always know the translator. From now on, I’m going to be more mindful to find out about the translator and their work. Writing comes straight from your head but it’s always inspired by something that already exists. But translating is a tough world of its own because one Italian word can mean multiple things and how amazing and fun and interesting it is to get to that right word with respect to the context. But also it is such a tough job to get it right.
~~THOUGHTS: WHAT I DID NOT LIKE~~
Whatever I did understand was enrapturing and also made me think of pursuing a PhD in Literature but there was also a lot I did not understand. Straight over the head. At times, the content felt like a grammar lesson. At other times, it felt like a boring documentary in the written format. Some times, it felt like Lahiri low key fangirling over her favorite writers and translators. And some content I simply thought was a bit much. For most of it, this felt like the kind of book people studying literature or translation should read.
In Chapter 4, she mentions how a man reviewed her Introduction to a book she had translated as “energy-sapping intellectualization.” I can’t help but agree to that description for some essays of the book.
With its ups and downs, I’m still glad I read this because I learnt quite a lot and got an insight into a translator’s life. I have rated Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri at 3.5/5 stars!
Full Review: Mindscape in Words
January 19, 2023
Translation as a practice and an artform is utterly fascinating to me. This collection of essays about translation could only have been written by a fellow devotee. Her love of language, myths and stories is palpable on every page.
Translation is often considered the poor cousin of writing 'ex nihilo': the one derivative the other innovative and independent. But Lahiri consummately debunks such myths, demonstrating how both are artistic expressions in their own right, both aiming to find meaningful connection with others. Lahiri highlights the often gendered nature of such conceptions. What nonsense!, she says, when language itself is a demonstration of our indebtedness to others: teachers, parents, peers
and strangers alike.
Lahiri expertly employs metaphors, without overstretching them, that gesture towards aspects of translation's magic. The translator as blind, but creatively so: other senses are heightened, new perspectives emerge. Language learning as a biological act, a grafting on of another way of being in the world.
Lahiri takes herself and her subject-matter quite seriously in these essays. The cost of her writing's beauty appears to be any kind of levity. Towards the end I started to get a little tired of hearing yet another way to talk about change/metamorphosis, another careful eulogy of change as in fact the only thing that matters. Several of these essays were introductions to books Lahiri had translated, and so you have to wade through plot synopses and discussions of unknown characters to get to the juicy bits sometimes.
What her seriousness betrays, I think, is an absolute passion for language - how it connects people across cultures and ages, how it shapes our understanding of the world, language's infinite well of fascination. I couldn't agree more.
Translation is often considered the poor cousin of writing 'ex nihilo': the one derivative the other innovative and independent. But Lahiri consummately debunks such myths, demonstrating how both are artistic expressions in their own right, both aiming to find meaningful connection with others. Lahiri highlights the often gendered nature of such conceptions. What nonsense!, she says, when language itself is a demonstration of our indebtedness to others: teachers, parents, peers
and strangers alike.
Lahiri expertly employs metaphors, without overstretching them, that gesture towards aspects of translation's magic. The translator as blind, but creatively so: other senses are heightened, new perspectives emerge. Language learning as a biological act, a grafting on of another way of being in the world.
Lahiri takes herself and her subject-matter quite seriously in these essays. The cost of her writing's beauty appears to be any kind of levity. Towards the end I started to get a little tired of hearing yet another way to talk about change/metamorphosis, another careful eulogy of change as in fact the only thing that matters. Several of these essays were introductions to books Lahiri had translated, and so you have to wade through plot synopses and discussions of unknown characters to get to the juicy bits sometimes.
What her seriousness betrays, I think, is an absolute passion for language - how it connects people across cultures and ages, how it shapes our understanding of the world, language's infinite well of fascination. I couldn't agree more.
June 5, 2022
I really loved her book Whereabouts and thought this would be interesting to read but it was straight up boring I am sorry
July 26, 2023
Lahiri's book is straddling the line between memoir and academic text on translation, never succeeding well at either.
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