Giuseppe Verdi composed his majestic Requiem Mass in honor of Manzoni. Published in its final form in 1842, The Betrothed has inspired generations of Italian readers and writers. The Betrothed is a cornerstone of Italian culture, language, and literature. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker “An exemplary historical novel” ( The New Yorker) from the father of modern Italian literature, The Betrothed receives its first new English-language translation in fifty years, hailed as “a landmark literary occasion” by Jhumpa Lahiri. By grafting herself onto a new literary language, she has pushed herself to a new level of artistic achievement.“The first English translation in more than fifty years of Alessandro Manzoni’s masterpiece, a work of foundational Italian literature on par with the Divine Comedy and the Decameron.”– The Wall Street Journal

It brims with the impulse to cross barriers. This is the first novel Jhumpa has written in Italian and translated into English. One day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun’s vital heat, her perspective will change. But in the arc of a year, as one season gives way to the next, transformation awaits. In addition to colleagues at work, where she never quite feels at ease, she has girl friends, guy friends, and “him,” a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. We follow her to the pool she frequents and to the train station that sometimes leads her to her mother, mired in a desperate solitude after her father’s untimely death. The city she calls home, an engaging backdrop to her days, acts as a confidant: the sidewalks around her house, parks, bridges, piazzas, streets, stores, coffee bars.

The woman at the center wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. “The marvelous new novel from the author of The Lowland and Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa’s first in nearly a decade.”Įxuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit.

The betrothed 2022 by michael f moore