Description

‘If the antidote to a year of solitude and trauma is art, then this novel is the answer. It is superb’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘A rare kind of literary celebrity’ VOGUE
‘A hypnotic disappearing act’ OBSERVER

The new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author: a haunting portrait of a woman, her decisions, her conversations, her solitariness, in a beautiful and lonely Italian city

The woman moves through the city, her city, on her own.

She moves along its bright pavements; she passes over its bridges, through its shops and pools and bars. She slows her pace to watch a couple fighting, to take in the sight of an old woman in a waiting room; pauses to drink her coffee in a shaded square.

Sometimes her steps take her to her grieving mother, sealed off in her own solitude. Sometimes they take her to the station, where the trains can spirit her away for a short while.

But in the arc of a year, as one season gives way to the next, transformation awaits. One day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun’s vital heat, her perspective will change forever.

A rare work of fiction, Whereabouts – first written in Italian and then translated by the author herself – brims with the impulse to cross barriers. By grafting herself onto a new literary language, Lahiri has pushed herself to a new level of artistic achievement. A dazzling evocation of a city, its captures a woman standing on one of life’s thresholds, reflecting on what has been lost and facing, with equal hope and rage, what may lie ahead.

‘An unusual literary and linguistic feat’ NEW YORK TIMES

Publisher Review

One of the most interesting American writers at work today ... Whereabouts feels like her answer to Matisse's cut-outs: she has taken her writing apart and reconstructed it, sparely, to make something new, where silence matters ... If the antidote to a year of solitude and trauma is art, then this novel is the answer. It is superb * SUNDAY TIMES * Elegantly done, a portrait veiled in quiet melancholy, but which still celebrates the unexpected joys of the quotidian, and how much more sharply you can appreciate them when alone * THE TIMES * Insightful, elegant prose exposing the faults that make us human * I NEWS * Addictive ... Sometimes we're in the mood for intimate novels exploring the intricacies of human emotion ... Quietly mesmerising * STYLIST * So timely ... Takes daring and to my mind beautiful risks with structure and plot -- ELIZABETH DAY * BBC Radio 4 Open Book * Its sentences are honed to minimalist beauty ... The most exciting moments of the novel are when it becomes a novel of thinking, when it dives down into its sharp, provocative fragments -- MADELEINE THIEN * NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW * A beautifully poised exploration of an interior life * DAILY MAIL * Each chapter an espresso shot of regret and loneliness ... This is a book about belonging and not belonging, place and displacement * GUARDIAN * Compelling ... Whereabouts feels like a movie ... Stylish and therapeutic * GUARDIAN * A quietly bracing work of fiction ... This is arguably Lahiri's most beautifully written novel * THE NATION * Whereabouts is rendered in short, journal-like fragments so strongly and rightly voiced that other books sound wrong when you turn to them * THE ATLANTIC * An utterly compelling and contemplative story, infused with a fascinating character study, whose presence I still can't seem to shake off. * STYLIST * Lahiri writes with subtlety and delicacy * NPR * Whereabouts signals a new mode for Lahiri, and a daring transformation ... It feels true and wise to the core * LOS ANGELES TIMES * Slim and bewitching ... A modern day flaneuse ... The author has a talent for capturing the everyday * SPECTATOR * Evokes fleeting but resonant encounters with Chekhovian efficiency, making ordinary memories seem profound ... Ms Lahiri has taken risks for her craft, and they have paid off, beautifully * ECONOMIST * Lahiri's prose is magnetic * MAIL+ * A hypnotic disappearing act ... The book's peculiar magnetism lies in its clash of candour and coyness * OBSERVER * An unusual literary and linguistic feat ... If, in English, Lahiri is an eye, in Italian, she's an ear * NEW YORK TIMES * Glorious ... Written with grace and sensitivity ... Magnificent * INDEPENDENT * Jhumpa Lahiri's writing is wonderful in the literal sense: on every page there is something to take your breath away * SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE * Subtle and stirring ... A fascinating departure in cadence and form for Lahiri ... The sort of deft hand so few can properly wield: it evokes the sort of slow thrum of despair and loneliness so few can manage well.Lahiri is no ordinary writer ... Poetic as she is and always has been, seemingly innocuous turns of phrase cut to the core, while descriptions of light and darkness take you aback and make you swoon. Elegant, beautiful ... Whereabouts will stay with you longer than you anticipate * USA TODAY * A meditative and aching snapshot of a life in suspension ... Lahiri's poetic flourishes and spare, conversational prose are on full display. This beautifully written portrait of a life in passage captures the hopes, frustrations, and longings of solitude and remembrance * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY * Painterly ... exquisitely detailed... [Lahiri's] language seems to have been sieved through a fine mesh, each word a gleaming gemstone ... An incisive and captivating evocation of the nature and nexus of place and self * BOOKLIST * Subtle and stirring ... A fascinating departure in cadence and form for Lahiri. Told in fragments, Whereabouts [is written with] the sort of deft hand so few can properly wield: it evokes the sort of slow thrum of despair and loneliness so few can manage well. But Lahiri is no ordinary writer. There's a calming sense of comfort one finds in the solitude experienced by our main character, largely due to the exactness of Lahiri's writing. Poetic as she is and always has been, seemingly innocuous turns of phrase cut to the core, while descriptions of light and darkness take you aback and make you swoon. Elegant, beautiful ... Whereabouts will stay with you longer than you anticipate * USA TODAY * Some books leave you with a feeling for which there are no words, or at least no words in English that you know of. Jhumpa Lahiri's Whereabouts is one of those books. The feeling closest to what is evoked by this beautifully crafted novel is a stroll during the blue hour on the first warm evening of spring. A jewel of a book * BOOKPAGE * Praise for Jhumpa Lahiri: A writer of formidable powers and great depth of feeling * Observer * She has a talent - magical, sly, cumulative - that most writers would kill for * Guardian * Lahiri spins gold out of the straw of ordinary lives. The calm, pellucid grace of her prose, the sustained stretch of crystal clear writing, its elegant pianissimo tone, pulls the reader from beginning to end in one neat arc. Every detail, every observation, every sentence rings with the clarity of truth * The Times * It's as beautiful as anything you will ever read - it touches your soul * Stylist * A fine writer, discriminating, compassionate and surprising -- Rachel Cusk A writer of uncommon sensitivity and restraint * Wall Street Journal * A writer of uncommon elegance and poise * New York Times * Lahiri joins the ranks of those whose work goes further and illuminates human nature in general * Times Literary Supplement * An author at the height of her artistry * Vogue * Hypnotic ... An excellent example of the art of fiction * Daily Telegraph * Elegant, subtle, and sad... Its spare, reflective prose and profound interiority recall the work of Rachel Cusk and Sigrid Nunez * KIRKUS *