"First published in 2015 in Italy as In altre parole by Guanda, Milan"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: The Crossing -- The Dictionary -- Love At First Sight -- Exile -- The Conversations -- The Renunciation -- Reading With A Dictionary -- Gathering Words -- The Diary -- The Story -- The Exchange -- The Fragile Shelter -- Impossibility -- Venice -- The Imperfect -- The Hairy Adolescent -- The Second Exile -- The Wall -- The Triangle -- The Metamorphosis -- Plumbing The Depths -- The Scaffolding -- Half-Light.

At heart, this is a love story -- of a long and sometimes difficult courtship, and a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. Although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterward, true mastery always eluded her. Seeking full immersion, she decides to move to Rome with her family, for "a trial by fire, a sort of baptism" into a new language and world. There, she begins to read, and to write -- initially in her journal -- solely in Italian. In Other Words, an autobiographical work written in Italian, investigates the process of learning to express oneself in another language, and describes the journey of a writer seeking a new voice.

Parallel text in English and Italian. Translated from the Italian.