The Clothing of Books
An Essay
A deeply personal reflection from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Namesake that explores the art of the book jacket from the perspectives of both reader and writer.
How do you clothe a book? Probing the complex relationships between text and image, author and designer, and art and commerce, Lahiri delves into the role of the uniform; explains what book jackets and design have come to mean to her; and how, sometimes, “the covers become a part of me.”
$11.95
November 15, 2016
JHUMPA LAHIRI, a bilingual writer and translator, is the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Barnard College, Columbia University. She received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies and is also the author of The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland. Since 2015, Lahiri has been writing fiction, essays, and poetry in Italian: In Altre Parole (In Other Words), Il Vestito dei libri (The Clothing of Books), Dove mi trovo (self-translated as Whereabouts), Il quaderno di Nerina, and Racconti romani. She received the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama in 2014, and in 2019 was named Commendatore of the Italian Republic by President Sergio Mattarella. Her most recent book in English, Translating…
The Betrothed
Alessandro Manzoni
Roman Stories
Jhumpa Lahiri
Whereabouts
Jhumpa Lahiri
Whereabouts
Jhumpa Lahiri
The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories
Edited by Jhumpa Lahiri
In Other Words
Jhumpa Lahiri; translated by Ann Goldstein
The Clothing of Books
Jhumpa Lahiri
Hell-Heaven
Jhumpa Lahiri
The Lowland
Jhumpa Lahiri
Unaccustomed Earth
Jhumpa Lahiri
Malgudi Days
R. K. Narayan