Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri

Earlier this year, I read Daniel Hahn’s excellent translation memoir Catching Fire, and I loved the experience so much that I jumped at the chance to read essays about translation by Jhumpa Lahiri – an author I’ve come to late, but whom I am loving. Princeton University Press kindly sent a review copy of Translating Myself and Others (2022), and here we are. It doesn’t quite count for Women in Translation month but it is certainly Women About Translation. Actually, it does include two essays translated into Italian, but I’m afraid I can’t read those. Lahiri moved to Italy in 2012 and a few years later started publishing in Italian. She’s now written a novel, a collection of short stories, poetry and several works of non-fiction in Italian – but that wasn’t sufficient for this polymath polyglot! She has also turned her hand to translating her own work, which is the genesis of this collection of essays. I don’t speak any language other than English, so reading Lahiri’s experience as an…