Framing the writer: Paratextual elements in the work of Jhumpa Lahiri

Unlike many writers who adopt the language of the country to which they have emigrated or with which they have ties dictated by colonialism, politics or economics, the choice of Jhumpa Lahiri—the Pulitzer-prize winning North American writer of Bengali heritage—to express herself creatively in Italian is apparently unmotivated. In altre parole (2015, trans. In Other Words) narrates her relationship with Italian, from language lessons in America, to her journeys to Italy and her ultimate decision to ‘abandon’ English and only write in this new language that somehow liberates her. This chapter investigates how paratextual elements provide a parallel narrative to Lahiri’s published fiction and non-fiction works, both in their source languages and in translation. The author herself is sensitive to paratextual elements, as testified by her 2017 work on the subject, Il vestito dei libri (translated as The Clothing of Books). Elements under observation include the ‘exoticising’ cover illustrations for some of her fiction, ‘celebrity’ endorsements on front covers, introductions and prefaces by Lahiri–both to her own work and the work of others–, critical reception of her works in the literary press and quotes from these sources included in subsequent volumes of her writing as well as the intriguing decision to republish In Other Words as a parallel text. A final section is dedicated to Lahiri’s role as editor of a collection of Italian short stories in English translation including an analysis of her preface and the consequent framing of the fiction.