In Other Words : A Saga of Love with Language

Jhumpa Lahiri is a well known name in Indian Diaspora writing. She has written stories and novels about the Indians as well as Indian migrants living in America. She is a master in describing the cultural conflict of Indians and their sense of alienation and exile. She is well acquainted with the situation of linguistic turmoil in life. Being a daughter of Bengali parents she is forced to speak Bengali as well as she has to master English to survive in America. But she has no sense of belonging with any of these languages. She chooses to learn Italian language in order to get away from her past existence. Her latest book In Altre Parole translated in English as In Other Words is her ‘linguistic autobiography’. This paper aims at showing the causes of Lahiri’s desire to express herself in a new language and her choice of Italian language. We will try to find out the reasons for her infatuation to Italian language and see how hard she labours to acquire and adopt it. We will also analyse her methods of acquiring the Italian language and the fruit of her labour, the book - In Other Words.