Readers who have missed the compelling narratives that Jhumpa Lahiri wrote in English before her switch to Italian in 2015 will be happy to learn that Roman Stories is a return to form.
This second book of fiction translated from her adopted language is broader in scope and more moving than her muted, somewhat underwhelming novel Whereabouts. Lahiri's focus here is no longer on generational conflicts between Southeast Asian immigrants and their American offspring. But her return to short stories — a form which she wielded so impressively in her 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies -- is also a return to fiction that powerfully conveys her characters' valiant efforts to navigate geographic and cultural relocations and find their place in the world.
