If certain books are to be termed 'immigrant fiction,' what do we call the rest? Native fiction? Puritan fiction? This distinction doesn't agree with me.
Jhumpa LahiriRead
I wish more Italian literature were translated and read in English. I've discovered so many extraordinary and diverse writers: Lalla Romano, Carlo Cassola. Beppe Fenoglio, Giorgio Manganelli, just to name a few.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of translating and reading Italian literature to appreciate its diverse voices.
Jhumpa Lahiri expresses her desire for greater accessibility to Italian literature in the English-speaking world. By mentioning extraordinary writers like Lalla Romano, Carlo Cassola, Beppe Fenoglio, and Giorgio Manganelli, she highlights the richness and diversity found in Italian literary works, suggesting that these voices should be celebrated and understood by a broader audience.
In practice
Using this quote during a book club discussion focused on international literature.
If certain books are to be termed 'immigrant fiction,' what do we call the rest? Native fiction? Puritan fiction? This distinction doesn't agree with me.
When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.
When I am experiencing a complex story or novel, the broader planes, and also details, tend to fall away.
I think each time you start a story or novel or whatever, you are absolutely at the bottom of the ladder all over again. It doesn't matter what you've done before.
The sky was different, without color, taut and unforgiving. But the water was the most unforgiving thing, nearly black at times, cold enough, I knew, to kill me, violent enough to break me apart. The waves were immense, battering rocky beaches without sand. The farther I went, the more desolate it became, more than any place I'd been, but for this very reason the landscape drew me, claimed me as nothing had in a long time.
On the technical side, I hope that my writing is evolving and maturing, ripening, deepening.
My last vivid boyhood fright from books came when I was 15; I was visiting my uncle and aunt in Greenwich, and, emboldened by my success with 'The Waste Land,' I opened their copy of 'Ulysses.' The whiff of death off those remorseless, closely written pages overpowered me. So: back to soluble mysteries, and jokes that were not cosmic.
My favorite literary heroine is Jo March. It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo, who had a hot temper and a burning ambition to be a writer.
Of course there are big differences in length and character and vocabulary, but each level has its particular pleasures when it comes to the words one can use and the way one uses them.
The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply.
Even though I read voraciously as a child, I never saw myself in books. Without narratives to expand my ideas of who I could be, I accepted the stories others told me about myself, stories which diminished and belittled me and people like me. I want to write against that.
That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.
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