Rimske priče

Roman Stories is an exceptional collection of short stories by the Nobel- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, in which Rome appears not merely as a picturesque backdrop but as a living, complex, and often ruthless character. After years of writing in English, the author reaffirms her complete literary transformation in this work by writing in Italian, thereby infusing her signature style with a new level of refinement and intimacy. At the heart of the collection are stories about people at a crossroads—winners and losers, long-time residents and newcomers, tourists and immigrants. With great psychological nuance and an absence of sentimentality, Lahiri portrays the everyday conflicts, prejudices, and sense of displacement her characters face as they attempt to find their place in a city with a rich yet often burdensome history. Through motifs of encounters on streets, in stairwells, and in parks, the author explores universal questions of human existence: what it means to belong to a place, how to cope with loss, and where to draw the line between stranger and local. Roman Stories is a moving and profound tribute to the Eternal City, as well as a masterful study of contemporary identity and human loneliness.