Discussion Questions
1. Andrea Lee has created complex characters who have multifaceted emotions and motives–Zenin shows both coldness and tenderness, Nick is caring and bitter, Mira both loves and betrays. Which character do you identify most with, and which do you find most and least sympathetic?
2. When Zenin invites Mira on his yacht, she surprises herself and Zenin with her sudden forward behavior. Lee describes the moment as Mira “struggling not against him but against something in herself” (40). What motivation lies behind her action, and what effect does it have on both of them? What emotions are Mira grappling with?
3. When Zenin invites Mira on his yacht, she surprises herself and Zenin with her sudden forward behavior. Lee describes the moment as Mira “struggling not against him but against something in herself” (40). What motivation lies behind her action, and what effect does it have on both of them? What emotions are Mira grappling with?
4. How would you characterize the bond between Mira and Zenin? Is it mainly comprised of physical attraction, or is it a power struggle? Do you believe they love each other? Discuss how their relationship progresses over the course of the novel.
5. Discuss the theme of displacement—geographical, racial, and romantic—in Lost Hearts in Italy. Explore the ways Mira, Zenin, Nick, and other characters are foreigners.
6. Zenin is a character who doesn’t lack material goods, women, family, or career success, yet he lives in “a dark world of things lacking.” What is missing in his life? Do you think it is possible for Zenin to ever be content?
7. Dreams make frequent appearances throughout Lost Hearts in Italy. What is their purpose, and what insight do they shed?
8. The second time Mira goes to meet Zenin, she “feels as if she has come to the center of her life, to the center of a wood in which all the leaves on the trees are eyes. Or to the hidden center, the secret heart she has been searching for in the labyrinth of Rome” (116). What is Mira’s epiphany here?
9. When Nick finds out about Mira’s infidelity, he states that she’s lost her country now. What does his statement mean? What do you think is the point when Mira has gone too far for her marriage to remain salvageable?
10. What is the significance of the Bangladesh woman, Roushana, in Chapter 27? Compare and contrast her with the other women in the novel.
11. Nick has a theory that the more foreign places you live in, the less you absorb. Do you agree with this opinion? What have your traveling experiences been in relation to his statement?
12. How have Mira, Zenin, and Nick changed by the end of Lost Hearts in Italy, besides losing their naivete? In which ways are they more content, and how do they remain unfulfilled?
(Questions issued by publisher.)