The Clothing of Books

How do you clothe a book? In this reflection, author Jhumpa Lahiri explores the art of the book jacket from the perspectives of both reader and writer. Probing the complex relationships between text and image, author and designer, and art and commerce, Lahiri delves into the role of the uniform; explains what book jackets and design have come to mean to her; and how, sometimes, "the covers become a part of me." First presented as a speech given in Italy at Festival degli Scrittori in 2015 and published subsequently in slightly different form in both English and Italian by the Santa Maddalena Foundation, Rosano-Firenze in 2015.