A conversation about the broad meaning of home -- what it means to two uprooted writers sharing the Italian and the American worlds, Jhumpa Lahiri and Chiara Marchelli, and where they look for and find it.

The authors talk about the words to define the concept of home, and how both of them found one, the only possible for both of them, in the words that they read and in the ones, particularly, that they write. They talk about how these words gave them a shelter, a haven, a dimension, and an identity. They share thoughts on a few themes that bond them strongly, although they come from very different cultures and backgrounds, and on how some human matters, such as the quest for a place to belong to, does not really depend on the place where one is actually from, and is just this: a human condition. This conversation leans on and "passes through" their latest books (Lahiri's "In altre parole" and Marchelli's "Le mie parole per te"), quoted and read from occasionally.

Introduced by Andrea Visconti (L'Espresso / Repubblica).

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò
New York University
October 22, 2015