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Saturday, November 19, 2016 – 4pm to 6pm
Alliance Française
6161 Cambie Street, Vancouver

Organized by the Consulate General of Italy in Vancouver and EUNIC Canada-Vancouver, in partnership with the Alliance Française, the next meeting with the EU Book Club, moderated by Maria Benimeo, will focus on a riveting non-fiction work, written in Italian by an Indian American author.

"IN OTHER WORDS"
In Other Words is at heart a love story—of a long and sometimes difficult courtship, and a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. And although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterward, true mastery had always eluded her. So in 2012, seeking full immersion, she decided to move to Rome with her family, for “a trial by fire, a sort of baptism” into a new language and world.
In Rome, Lahiri began to read, and to write—initially in her journal—solely in Italian.
In Other Words, an autobiographical work written in Italian, investigates the process of learning to express oneself in another language, and describes the journey of a writer seeking a new voice. Presented in a dual-language format, it is a book about exile, linguistic and otherwise, written with an intensity and clarity not seen since Nabokov. A startling act of self-reflection and a provocative exploration of belonging and reinvention.

Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri is an Indian American author. Lahiri's debut short story collection Interpreter of Maladies (1999) won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. She is a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama. Her book The Lowland, published in 2013, was a nominee for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.
In Other Words was published in 2015.
Lahiri is currently a professor of creative writing at Princeton University.


Admission is free, but please register by e-mail: eubookclub@alliancefrancaise.ca 
Note: The book was published in English (translation by Ann Goldstein) with parallel text in Italian, by Knopf Canada in 2016.
it is widely available in paperback or e-book formats at amazon.com, amazon.ca and chapters.indigo.ca.
It is also available from Chapters bookstores and on order from the VPL (20 copies).