If you have read my self-reflections in the previous edition of Voices you will most likely already understand where this article is going. In case you haven’t already, I highly encourage you to do so, just like I hope to motivate you to read all the books that I’m going to mention in this article. 

Indeed, my reflective thoughts have not been fed just by my anxiety. Holidays at the seaside, and reading have also been contributing factors. From what I just said, you might think I was reading some deeply philosophical essays or some self-help book. But actually no. A “simple” compilation of short stories in Italian (“Racconti Romani”, Jhumpa Lahiri translated in English as “Roman Stories”) was what fed my thoughts. How can short stories taking place in Rome, a city I’ve only briefly visited when I was 5 years old, inspire my mind? 

Well, to be honest, I don’t really know either. The only connection is between my current living situation, as a person living abroad, and the fact that the book chooses to focus on foreigners living in Rome and its outskirts, rather than on native Italians. While this choice may seem “unusual”, it makes this book even more interesting and impactful in my opinion.

Furthermore reading this book reminded me of another book of the same author that I read at the beginning of last year (“In altre parole”, translated in English as “In Other Words”) and that also left a mark on me. In this book the author explored her curious relationship to the Italian language, how she found herself attracted to Italian by chance, and most importantly all the efforts that she put into immersing herself in the culture and to take this language as her own. Efforts that led her to do a really peculiar thing: writing mostly in Italian despite not being a native speaker, and despite already having an established career as an English language writer. 

You might be wondering why I’m bringing up books about the Italian language in the middle of my self-reflections. It probably feels a bit out of place and honestly, I’d agree with you, because it is rather random. However, it somewhat still perfectly makes sense if you know me, my sometimes niche interests, or if you’re learning or interested in learning foreign languages. Indeed every person that ever got invested in learning some foreign language, whether it’s Italian or not, will relate and understand all the phases of doubts mentioned in “In Other Words”. And while being able to write books in a foreign language may not be the goal of everyone, having the confidence to do so certainly is. For example, I know that reading these books in a way made me envious of the capacity and confidence that Lahiri has to have been able to reach such a level of “fluency” that she can now write books in her 3rd language. 

I’m aware that the process of learning a foreign language can be a long journey, which is what makes it frightening to most people. There’s for example this metaphor used at the beginning of “In Other Words” that really stuck with me. I still remember it even more than one year after having finished reading the book. Indeed the language learning process is compared to swimming across a lake. That is whilst arriving on the other side of the lake might be appealing, leaving the comfort of the bank to be in the deeper water of the middle of the lake can be dissuading. However, once the other side is finally reached after having gathered the courage to swim to the other side, we realise that after all it wasn’t as scary as we thought. I believe this particular metaphor comes back to my mind quite regularly as I’m still in the process of contemplating the other side of the lake, notably because I’m scared of making mistakes. Making mistakes is totally normal, and is the way you learn to do things, but even knowing this I haven’t been able to let go of my fear for now. In spite of this, I keep trying little by little, due to the fact that doing so will make it less and less scary and the end result will be even more rewarding. 

I could go on writing many more paragraphs about the different books by Lahiri that I have read or am currently reading, and how they inspire and motivate me in different ways. The first one is keeping on learning Italian or any other language I’m interested in right now. If I continue learning and making progress, then maybe one day I could be the one writing books in foreign languages, or sharing how I came to learn various ‘random’ smaller languages. I never thought about being a writer, but the more I read her books, the more I somehow feel inspired to write one in some distant future, about my journey to learning languages. 

In the introduction, I mentioned that my goal with this article is to encourage every reader of this article to read the books that I made references to here. While it’s not exactly a realistic goal, if I manage to inspire at least one person, this goal will be achieved for me. 

Chloe Gaschy

Books mentioned/ inspirations:

In altre parole (Italian) (2015) (translated in English as In Other Words, 2016)

Racconti romani (Italian) (2022) (translated in English as Roman Stories, 2023)

Translating Myself and Others (English) (2022) (translated in Italian as Perché l’italiano? Storia di una metamorfosi, 2025)