JHUMPA LAHIRIwas born in London and grew up in Rhode Island. Her debut collection of stories,Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and The New Yorker Debut of the Year. Her novelThe Namesakewas a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. It was also named one of the best books of the year by USA Today and Entertainment Weekly, among others.

In December 2015, Lahiri published a nonfiction essay,"Teach Yourself Italian,"in The New Yorker about her experience learning Italian. In the article, she declared that she would now only write in Italian. That same year, she published her first book in Italian,In altre parole, in which she wrote,I waited a very long time to really go away from the world I knew. Rome has given me a sense of belonging.In 2018, she published her first novel in Italian,Dove mi trovo. In 2019, she compiled, edited, and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, consisting of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 Italian writers. She also recently published, to great acclaim, a volume of short stories entitledRacconti romani.

CARLO PETRINIis an Italian activist, writer, and founder of the internationalSlow Foodmovement.

Formerly a political activist in thecommunistProletarian Unity Party(Partito di Unit Proletaria; PdUP), in 1977, he began contributing culinary articles to the communist daily newspapersIl Manifesto泭硃紳餃泭郭'惚紳勳喧. In 1983, he helped create and develop the Italian non-profit food and wine association known asArcigola.He founded Slow Food in 1986 and became the organization's president.

With the initial aim todefend regional traditions, good food, gastronomic pleasure, and a slow pace of life,in almost three decades of history, the movement has evolved to embrace a comprehensive approach to food that recognizes the strong connections between plate, planet, people, politics, and culture. Today Slow Food represents a global movement involving thousands of projects and millions of people in over 160 countries.

Petrini is an editor for multiple publications at the publishing houseSlow Food Editore. He has written weekly columns forLa Stampaand is a regular contributor toLa Repubblica. In October 2004, he founded theUniversity of Gastronomic Sciences, a university dedicated to new gastronomists and innovators ofsustainable food systems.

Petrini has received numerous awards and acknowledgments, including Communicator of the Year at theInternational Wine and Spirit CompetitioninLondon,the Sicco Mansholt Prizein theNetherlands, andthe Eckart WitzigmannScience and Media Prize fromGermany. In 2004 he was named one of啦勳鳥梗泭magazine's Heroes of the Year.


Photography attribution:

  1. by Francesca Leonardi.Licensed under.
  2. by Festival della Scienza. Licensed under.