Roman Stories

Short stories of belonging and displacement in Rome

By: Jhumpa Lahiri, Jhumpa Lahiri - translator, Todd Portnowitz - translator

Narrated by: Ari Fliakos, Carlotta Brentan, Cassandra Campbell, Deepti Gupta, Michael Obiora

A collection of short stories set in and around Rome from Jhumpa Lahiri, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies.

'Stimulating, elengant, distinctive and thought-provoking' – Sunday Times

In these short stories Jhumpa Lahiri sets her gaze on the eternally beautiful city of Rome, illuminating the frailties of the human condition and dissecting lives lived on the margins.

A man recalls a summer party that awakens an alternative version of himself. A couple haunted by a tragic loss return to seek consolation. An outsider family is pushed out of the block in which they hoped to settle. A set of steps in a Roman neighbourhood connects the daily lives of the city’s myriad inhabitants.

This is an evocative fresco of Rome, the most alluring character of all: contradictory, in constant transformation and a home to those who know they can’t fully belong but choose it anyway.

Rich with Lahiri’s signature gifts, Roman Stories is a masterful work from one of the finest writers of our time.

Translated from the Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri and Todd Portnowitz

Critic reviews

Lahiri [works] over her themes with a precise and controlling intellect . . . These stories are stimulating, elengant, distinctive and thought-provoking

A writer of formidable powers and great depth of feeling

One of the most interesting American writers at work today

Lahiri steps back from the action, gets out of the way, so the people and things in her stories can exist the way real things do: richly, ambiguously, without explanation.

A writer of uncommon elegance and poise

Lahiri has a talent for capturing the everyday

Jhumpa Lahiri is intelligent, astute, informed and genuine

Jhumpa Lahiri is an elegant stylist, effortlessly placing the perfect words in the perfect order time and again so we’re transported seamlessly into another place

Jhumpa Lahiri's writing is wonderful in the literal sense: on every page there is something to take your breath away

Lahiri has an extraordinary voice (Salman Rushdie)

Jhumpa Lahiri is the kind of writer who makes you want to grab the next person you see and say “Read this!” She’s a dazzling storyteller with a distinctive voice, an eye for nuance, an ear for irony. She is one of the finest short story writers I’ve read. (Amy Tan)

An urgent and affecting portrait of Rome in nine stories . . .

Full of humanity and its joys and disappointments, tiny incidents resonate through time and relationships. The city feels like another character, slipping in and out of focus just as the fleeting lives of the characters do too.

Suspenseful life stories by real people in every day circumstances .

A magnificent book of personal stories, which tale place in the myriad of people who live in Rome, but transcending to everyman… anywhere. It is always awaiting and welcoming the reader/listener to where they find themselves in life’s voyage seeking identity, meaning, significance…. Planting our stories in the soil of ethos, circumstances and decision making, along with love in its many forms, its meaning and misunderstanding.
Beautiful prose mixed with the many and intricate dimensions of literature, culture and language to create intriguing environments for interior and exterior discovery, from the intrinsic and extrinsic.