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f92f0c6
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In American, when I was young, my parents always seemed to be in mourning for something. Now I understand: it must have been the language.
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language
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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fbce6df
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When the language one identifies with is far away, one does everything possible to keep it alive.
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language
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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fc5637c
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When you live without your own language you feel weightless and, at the same time, overloaded. You breathe another type of air, at a different altitude. You are always aware of the difference.
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language-barrier
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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b892354
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Once, within this enclave, there were two ponds, oblong, side by side. Behind them was a lowland spanning a few acres.
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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7797320
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Why, as an adult, as a writer, am I interested in this new relationship with imperfection? What does it offer me? I would say a stunning clarity, a more profound self-awareness. Imperfection inspires invention, imagination, creativity. It stimulates. The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive.
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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301d845
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Most of all I remember the three of them operating during that time as if they were a single person, sharing a single meal, a single body, a single silence, and a single fear." -When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine"
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war
dacca
indo
pakistani
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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ff6f35f
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At the same time she felt a tremendous, consuming, uncertainty that cancelled out everything, that left her with nothing...She had come to that city looking for another version of herself, a transfiguration. But she understood that her identity was insidious, a root that she would never be able to pull up, a prison in which she would be trapped. Al tempo stesso sentiva un'incertezza tremenda che la consumava, che cancellava tutto, che la la..
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travel
language-as-a-form-of-travel
search-for-self
why-people-travel
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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73673bc
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The unknown words remind me that there's a lot I don't know in this world.
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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d560156
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One could say that the mechanism of metamorphosis is the only element of life that never changes. The journey of every individual, every country, every historical epoch, of the entire universe and all it contains, is nothing but a series of changes, at times subtle, at times deep, without which we would stand still. The moments of transition, in which something changes, constitute the backbone of all of us. Whether they are a salvation or a..
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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36775f5
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I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music?We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we aren't aware of before. We want to transform ourselves, just as Ovid's masterwork transformed me.
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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cc5ed2b
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But when I come out of the woods, when I see the basket, scarcely a handful of words remain. The majority disappear. They vanish into thin air, they flow like water between my fingers. Because the basket is memory, and memory betrays me, memory doesn't hold up.
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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07836d2
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Why do I write? To investigate the mystery of existence. To tolerate myself. To get closer to everything that is outside of me. If I want to understand what moves me, what confuses me, what pains me--everything that makes me react, in short--I have to put it into words. Writing is my only way of absorbing and organizing life. Otherwise it would terrify me, it would upset me too much. What passes without being put into words, without being t..
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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3c5991a
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Everything has to be reconsidered, shaped anew. Autobiographical fiction, even if it is inspired by reality, by memory, requires a rigorous selection, a merciless cutting. One writes with the pen, but in the end, to create the right form, one has to use, like Matisse, a good pair of scissors.
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Jhumpa Lahiri |
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7950113
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And for the first time in his life, another man's name upset Gogol more than his own.
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Jhumpa Lahiri |