This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Triesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Jumpa Lahiri, read her story, casting

shadows.

From the February 15th and 22nd 2021 issue of the magazine, Lahiri is the author of two

novels and two short story collections.

Her first book, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, and she was a

recipient of the National Humanities Medal in 2014.

Her new novel, Whereabouts, from which this story was adapted, was published in Italian

in 2018 and will come out in Lahiri's English translation in April.

Now here's Jumpa Lahiri.

Casting Shadows.

Now and then, on the streets of my neighborhood, I bump into a man I might have been involved

with, maybe shared a life with.

He always looks happy to see me, he lives with a friend of mine, and they have two children.

Our relationship never goes beyond the longest chat on the sidewalk, a quick coffee together,

perhaps a brief stroll in the same direction.

He talks excitedly about his projects, he just circulates, and at times as we're walking,

our synchronized bodies, already quite close, discreetly overlap.

Once he accompanied me into a lingerie shop, because I had to choose pair of tights to

wear under a new skirt, I just bought the skirt, and I needed the tights for that evening.

Our fingers grazed the textures, played out on the counter, as we sorted through the various

...