I spent an evening at a conversation-style event hosted by the Italian Academy and centered around Rome.

I trudged across Broadway on a windy day to Columbia’s Italian Academy to see if I could get into “On Rome & Writing” via standby. Fortunately, I did. The event took place in the Academy’s “Teatro,” a pretty opulent theatre, housing many chandeliers and ornate curtains.

The Academy’s Executive Director Barbara Faedda introduced the evening’s speakers: author, translator, Pulitzer awardee, and Barnard’s Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English Jhumpa Lahiri, and Alessandro Giammei, author and Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at Yale University. The format of the event was casual—a fireside chat between the speakers, followed by a Q&A. Over its course, there would be five postcards created by Giammei (that he described as anti-postcards) that served as topics to guide discussion, with themes such as confine, ombre, and nostalgia.

Lahiri and Giammei began their conversation by bringing up the concept of boundaries, or, as you’d say in Italian, confine. They discussed what exactly Rome’s boundaries are, the fluidity of these boundaries, and how they’re affected by the opinions of the city’s many inhabitants. They noted that confine was an important word in Lahiri’s book Roman Stories, and how one of her first Italian short stories, published 11 years ago, was titled The Boundaries. Lahiri brought up how living in Rome was transformative for her, and shared an anecdote about a gifted map of the city that hangs in her house to this day. 

The speakers moved on to discussing the next postcard, ombre (meaning “shadows”), bringing up how a lot of the visitors to Rome have preconceived images in their heads, but are often disappointed by its reality, citing F. Scott Fitzgerald and Virginia Woolf as examples. Keeping the theme of anti-postcards, Lahiri mentioned how her book Dove i trovo is essentially an anti-souvenir. Giammei pointed out the difference in how she writes in English and Italian—her work in English is more visual, whereas her Italian stories are centered around auditory imagery.

The third postcard, alieno, elicited a discussion on how Rome is least known in Rome itself. It isn’t citizenship or Italian blood that familiarizes you with the city, but your own curiosity. Lahiri read a passage on foreigners’ perceptions of Rome, noting how some attempt to acclimate to a new environment while others hold onto a sense of normalcy. 

Nostalgia, the next postcard, addressed people’s opinions that Rome is, to put it simply, horrible. Lahiri and Giammei, however, believe the city is intimate, and sort of holds you. Some people let disenchantment get to them and are blinded by expectations, but the city isn’t perfect, and never promised it would be. Lahiri stated succinctly, “This city is shit, but so damn beautiful.”

As the event came to a close, I realized just how subjective cities truly are—something I find endearing about one might be exactly what makes someone else want to leave. At their core, though, they can, and often do, share the same essence. Lahiri and Giammei shared how New York City and Rome have a lot more in common than you’d think, and I couldn’t help but make connections between them and my own hometown. I made my way out of the Italian Academy with a newfound perspective on what it means to live in and learn to love a city.

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