Play Audiobook Sample
Roman Stories Audiobook
Play Audiobook Sample
(0.00) - 0 listener ratings
Quick Stats About this Audiobook
Total Audiobook Chapters:
Longest Chapter Length:
Shortest Chapter Length:
Average Chapter Length:
Audiobooks by this Author:
Publisher Description
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORKER, NPR • The first short story collection by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and master of the form since her number one New York Times best seller Unaccustomed Earth • Rome—metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multi-faceted and metaphysical—is the protagonist, not the setting, of these nine stories
"A delectable, sun-washed treat . . . the stories have the beating heart of the city itself, a place of magnificent decay and vibrant, varied life." —Vogue
In “The Boundary,” one family vacations in the Roman countryside, though we see their lives through the eyes of the caretaker’s daughter, who nurses a wound from her family’s immigrant past. In “P’s Parties,” a Roman couple, now empty nesters, finds comfort and community with foreigners at their friend’s yearly birthday gathering—until the husband crosses a line.
And in “The Steps,” on a public staircase that connects two neighborhoods and the residents who climb up and down it, we see Italy’s capital in all of its social and cultural variegations, filled with the tensions of a changing city: visibility and invisibility, random acts of aggression, the challenge of straddling worlds and cultures, and the meaning of home.
These are splendid, searching stories, written in Jhumpa Lahiri’s adopted language of Italian and seamlessly translated by the author and by Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz. Stories steeped in the moods of Italian master Alberto Moravia and guided, in the concluding tale, by the ineluctable ghost of Dante Alighieri, whose words lead the protagonist toward a new way of life.
Download and start listening now!
"A dazzling collection of nine stories originally written in Italian and featuring characters who grapple with vast emotional and social chasms that cleave the lives of families, longtime friends, and immigrants . . . Throughout, Lahiri’s luminous prose captures a side of Rome often ignored . . . These unembroidered yet potent stories shine."
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Quotes
-
A delectable, sun-washed treat . . . the stories have the beating heart of the city itself, a place of magnificent decay and vibrant, varied life.
— Vogue -
Masterful . . . Lahiri brilliantly delineates her characters' triumphs and trials.
— Minneapolis Star Tribune -
A brilliant return to the short story form by an author of protean accomplishments . . . Filled with intelligence and sorrow, these sharply drawn glimpses of Roman lives create an impressively unified effect.
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) -
Stunning . . . A finely calibrated collection about insiders and outsiders, natives and foreigners . . . Rome with its echoing past and mercurial present is a potently evocative setting for Lahiri’s exquisitely incisive, richly empathetic, and profoundly resonant stories.
— Booklist (starred review) -
Electric . . . Elegant . . . The fluid transitions between Lahiri’s and Portnowitz’s translations elevate Roman Stories from a grouping of individual tales to a deeply moving whole.
— The New York Times -
A delectable, sun-washed treat . . . the stories have the beating heart of the city itself, a place of magnificent decay and vibrant, varied life.
— Vogue -
Heartrending. . . affecting . . . [Lahiri] powerfully conveys her characters' valiant efforts to navigate geographic and cultural relocations and find their place in the world.
— NPR -
Dazzling.
— People -
Each narrative contains deftly drawn vignettes of the entwined lives of Italians and foreigners of different classes, colors, ages and creeds.
— Wall Street Journal
Roman Stories Listener Reviews
Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
About Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri is a London-born American author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction who has won more than a dozen awards and medals, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her debut short-story collection, Interpreter of Maladies. Among her other honors are the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the Premio Gregor von Rezzori, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia, the Addison Metcalf Award, and a National Humanities Medal. She is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University.
About the Narrators
Ari Fliakos is an actor with experience in television, radio, film, theater, and voice-overs. He has earned four Earphones Awards, and his narration of Seth Patrick’s Reviver won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration for paranormal fiction. On screen, he is best-known for his roles in Law & Order, Pills, and Company K.
Cassandra Campbell has won multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, and the prestigious Odyssey Award for narration. She was been named a “Best Voice” by AudioFile magazine and in 2018 was inducted in Audible’s inaugural Narrator Hall of Fame.
Deepti Gupta, fluent in Hindi, Urdu, and English, has an international career spread across India, Singapore, Pakistan, and the United States. As a narrator she brings an open and curious perspective to the author’s work. As an actress she has earned praise from the New York Times for her performance in the feature film Walkaway and also stars in Record/Play (a sci-fi love story) which was an official selection at Sundance 2013.
Carlotta Brentan is a voice talent and audiobook narrator.