Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri (Bengali: ; born on July

11, 1967) is an Indian American author. Lahiris debut
short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won
the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her rst novel,
The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular lm
of the same name.[2] She was born Nilanjana Sudeshna
but goes by her nickname (or in Bengali, her Daak
naam) Jhumpa.[1] Lahiri is a member of the Presidents
Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by
U.S. President Barack Obama.[3] Her book The Lowland,
published in 2013, was a nominee for the Man Booker
Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.

journalist who was then Deputy Editor of TIME Latin

America, and who is now Senior Editor of TIME Latin
America. Lahiri lives in Rome, Italy[8] with her husband
and their two children, Octavio (b. 2002) and Noor (b.
2005).[6]

2 Literary career
Lahiris early short stories faced rejection from publishers
for years.[9] Her debut short story collection, Interpreter
of Maladies, was nally released in 1999. The stories address sensitive dilemmas in the lives of Indians or Indian
immigrants, with themes such as marital diculties, miscarriages, and the disconnection between rst and second
generation United States immigrants. Lahiri later wrote,
When I rst started writing I was not conscious that my
subject was the Indian-American experience. What drew
me to my craft was the desire to force the two worlds I occupied to mingle on the page as I was not brave enough,
or mature enough, to allow in life. [10] The collection was
praised by American critics, but received mixed reviews
in India, where reviewers were alternately enthusiastic
and upset Lahiri had not paint[ed] Indians in a more
positive light.[11] Interpreter of Maladies sold 600,000
copies and received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
(only the seventh time a story collection had won the
award).[1][12]

Biography

Lahiri was born in London, the daughter of Indian immigrants from the state of West Bengal. Her family moved
to the United States when she was two; Lahiri considers
herself an American, stating, I wasn't born here, but I
might as well have been. [1] Lahiri grew up in Kingston,
Rhode Island, where her father Amar Lahiri works as a
librarian at the University of Rhode Island;[1] he is the
basis for the protagonist in The Third and Final Continent, the closing story from Interpreter of Maladies.[4]
Lahiris mother wanted her children to grow up knowing
their Bengali heritage, and her family often visited relatives in Calcutta (now Kolkata).[5]
When she began kindergarten in Kingston, Rhode Island, Lahiris teacher decided to call her by her pet name,
Jhumpa, because it was easier to pronounce than her
proper name.[1] Lahiri recalled, I always felt so embarrassed by my name.... You feel like you're causing someone
pain just by being who you are. [6] Lahiris ambivalence
over her identity was the inspiration for the ambivalence
of Gogol, the protagonist of her novel The Namesake,
over his unusual name.[1] Lahiri graduated from South
Kingstown High School and received her B.A. in English
literature from Barnard College in 1989.[7]

In 2003, Lahiri published The Namesake, her rst

novel.[11] The story spans over thirty years in the life of
the Ganguli family. The Calcutta-born parents emigrated
as young adults to the United States, where their children, Gogol and Sonia, grow up experiencing the constant
generational and cultural gap with their parents. A lm
adaptation of The Namesake was released in March 2007,
directed by Mira Nair and starring Kal Penn as Gogol
and Bollywood stars Tabu and Irrfan Khan as his parents.
Lahiri herself made a cameo as Aunt Jhumpa.

Lahiris second collection of short stories, Unaccustomed

Earth, was released on April 1, 2008. Upon its publication, Unaccustomed Earth achieved the rare distinction of debuting at number 1 on The New York Times
best seller list.[13] New York Times Book Review editor,
Dwight Garner, stated, Its hard to remember the last
genuinely serious, well-written work of ction particularly a book of stories that leapt straight to No. 1; its
a powerful demonstration of Lahiris newfound commerIn 2001, Lahiri married Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, a cial clout.[13]
Lahiri then received multiple degrees from Boston University: an M.A. in English, M.F.A. in Creative Writing,
M.A. in Comparative Literature, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She took a fellowship at Provincetowns
Fine Arts Work Center, which lasted for the next two
years (19971998). Lahiri has taught creative writing at
Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design.

5 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lahiri has also had a distinguished relationship with The

New Yorker magazine in which she has published a number of her short stories, mostly ction, and a few nonction including The Long Way Home; Cooking Lessons,
a story about the importance of food in Lahiris relationship with her mother.

4 Television

Lahiri worked on the third season of the HBO television

program In Treatment. That season featured a character named Sunil, a widower who moves to the United
States from India and struggles with grief and with culSince 2005, Lahiri has been a Vice President of the PEN ture shock. Although she is credited as a writer on these
American Center, an organization designed to promote episodes, her role was more as a consultant on how a Bengali man might perceive Brooklyn.[18]
friendship and intellectual cooperation among writers.
In February 2010, she was appointed a member of the
Committee on the Arts and Humanities, along with ve
others.[3]

5 Bibliography

In September 2013, her novel The Lowland was placed on

the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize,[14][15] which ulti- 5.1 Short story collections
mately went to The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. The
Interpreter of Maladies (1999)
following month it was also long-listed for the National
Book Award for Fiction, and revealed to be a nalist on
A Temporary Matter (previously published
October 16, 2013.[16] However, on November 20, 2013,
in The New Yorker)
it lost out for that award to James McBride and his novel
When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine (previThe Good Lord Bird.[16]
ously published in The Louisville Review)
Interpreter of Maladies (previously published in the Agni Review)

Literary focus

Lahiris writing is characterized by her plain language

and her characters, often Indian immigrants to America
who must navigate between the cultural values of their
homeland and their adopted home.[2][10] Lahiris ction
is autobiographical and frequently draws upon her own
experiences as well as those of her parents, friends, acquaintances, and others in the Bengali communities with
which she is familiar. Lahiri examines her characters
struggles, anxieties, and biases to chronicle the nuances
and details of immigrant psychology and behavior.
Until Unaccustomed Earth, she focused mostly on rstgeneration Indian American immigrants and their struggle to raise a family in a country very dierent from
theirs. Her stories describe their eorts to keep their children acquainted with Indian culture and traditions and to
keep them close even after they have grown up in order to
hang on to the Indian tradition of a joint family, in which
the parents, their children and the childrens families live
under the same roof.

A Real Durwan
Sexy
Mrs. Sens (previously published in Salamander)
This Blessed House (previously published in
Epoch)
The Treatment of Bibi Haldar (previously
published in Story Quarterly)
The Third and Final Continent
Unaccustomed Earth (2008)
Part One
Unaccustomed Earth
Hell-Heaven (previously published in
The New Yorker)
A Choice of Accommodations
Only Goodness
Nobodys Business (previously published in The New Yorker)
Part Two

Once In A Lifetime (previously pubUnaccustomed Earth departs from this earlier original
lished in The New Yorker)
ethos as Lahiris characters embark on new stages of de
Years End (previously published in The
velopment. These stories scrutinize the fate of the second
New Yorker)
and third generations. As succeeding generations become

Going Ashore
increasingly assimilated into American culture and are
comfortable in constructing perspectives outside of their
country of origin, Lahiris ction shifts to the needs of
5.2 Novels
the individual. She shows how later generations depart
from the constraints of their immigrant parents, who are
The Namesake (2003)
often devoted to their community and their responsibility
The Lowland (2013)
to other immigrants.[17]

5.3

Unpublished material (academic)

A Real Durwan and Other Stories (1993, Boston

University M.A. thesis)
Only an Address: Six Stories by Ashapurna Devi introduced, translated and with critical commentary
by Lahiri (1995, Boston University M.A. thesis)
Accursed Palace: The Italian Palazzo on the Jacobean Stage (1603-1625) (1997, Boston University
Ph.D. thesis)

5.4

Uncollected non-ction

Cooking Lessons: The Long Way Home (6

September 2004, The New Yorker)
Improvisations: Rice (23 November 2009, The
New Yorker)
Reections: Notes from a Literary Apprenticeship
(13 June 2011, The New Yorker)

5.5

Contributions

(Introduction) The Magic Barrel: Stories by Bernard

Malamud, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, July 2003.
(Introduction) Malgudi Days by R.K. Narayan,
Penguin Classics, August 2006.
Rhode Island (essay), State by State: A Panoramic
Portrait of America edited by Matt Weiland and
Sean Wilsey, Ecco, September 16, 2008
Essay, The Suspension of Time: Reections on Simon
Dinnerstein and The Fulbright Tryptich edited by
Daniel Slager, Milkweed Editions, June 14, 2011.

Awards
1993 TransAtlantic Award from the Heneld
Foundation
1999 O. Henry Award for short story Interpreter
of Maladies
1999 PEN/Hemingway Award (Best Fiction Debut of the Year) for Interpreter of Maladies
1999 Interpreter of Maladies selected as one of
Best American Short Stories

2000 The New Yorker's Best Debut of the Year for

Interpreter of Maladies
2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her debut Interpreter of Maladies
2000 James Beard Foundation's M.F.K. Fisher
Distinguished Writing Award for Indian Takeout
in Food & Wine Magazine
2002 Guggenheim Fellowship
2002 Nobodys Business selected as one of Best
American Short Stories
2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story
Award for Unaccustomed Earth
2009 Asian American Literary Award for Unaccustomed Earth
2009 Premio Gregor von Rezzori for foreign
ction translated into Italian for Unaccustomed
Earth (Una nuova terra), translated by Federica
Oddera (Guanda)
2014 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for
The Lowland[19]

7 Further reading
Leyda, Julia (January 2011).
An interview
with Jhumpa Lahiri. Contemporary Womens
Writing (Oxford Journals) 5 (1):
6683.
doi:10.1093/cwwrit/vpq006.
Majithia, Sheetal (Fall/Winter 2001). "Foreigners
and Fetishes: A Reading of Recent South Asian
American Fiction." Samar 14: 5253 The South
Asian American Generation.
Roy, Pinaki. Postmodern Diasporic Sensibility:
Rereading Jhumpa Lahiris Oeuvre. Indian English
Fiction: Postmodern Literary Sensibility. Ed. Bite,
V. New Delhi: Authors Press, 2012 (ISBN 978-817273-677-4). pp. 90109.
Roy, Pinaki. Reading The Lowland: Its Highs and
its Lows. Labyrinth (ISSN 0976-0814) 5(3), July
2014: 153-62.

8 References

2000 Addison Metcalf Award from the American

Academy of Arts and Letters

[1] Minzesheimer, Bob. For Pulitzer winner Lahiri, a novel

approach, USA Today, 2003-08-19. Retrieved on 200804-13.

2000 The Third and Final Continent selected as

one of Best American Short Stories

[2] Chotiner, Isaac. Interviews: Jhumpa Lahiri, The Atlantic, 2008-03-18. Retrieved on 2008-04-12.

[3] Barack Obama appoints Jhumpa Lahiri to arts committee, The Times of India, 7 February 2010
[4] Flynn, Gillian. Passage To India: First-time author
Jhumpa Lahiri nabs a Pulitzer, Entertainment Weekly,
2000-04-28. Retrieved on 2008-04-13.
[5] Aguiar, Arun. One on One With Jhumpa Lahiri, Pifmagazine.com, 1999-07-28. Retrieved on 2008-04-13.
[6] Anastas, Benjamin. Books: Inspiring Adaptation,
Mens Vogue, March 2007. Retrieved on 2008-04-13.
[7] Pulitzer Prize awarded to Barnard alumna Jhumpa Lahiri
89; Katherine Boo 88 cited in public service award to The
Washington Post, Barnard Campus News, 2000-04-11.
Retrieved on 2008-04-13.
[8] Spinks, John. A Writers Room, T: The New York
Times Style Magazine, 25 August 2013.
[9] http://www.pifmagazine.com/SID/598/
[10] Lahiri, Jhumpa. My Two Lives, Newsweek, 2006-0306. Retrieved on 2008-04-13.
[11] Wiltz, Teresa. The Writer Who Began With a Hyphen:
Jhumpa Lahiri, Between Two Cultures, The Washington
Post, 2003-10-08. Retrieved on 2008-04-15.
[12] Farnsworth, Elizabeth. Pulitzer Prize Winner-Fiction,
PBS NewsHour, 2000-04-12. Retrieved on 2008-04-15.
[13] Garner, Dwight. Jhumpa Lahiri, With a Bullet The New
York Times Paper Cuts blog, 2008-04-10. Retrieved on
2008-04-12.
[14] Masters, Tim (2013-07-23). Man Booker judges reveal
'most diverse' longlist. BBC. Retrieved 2013-07-23.
[15] BBC News - Man Booker Prize 2013: Toibin and Crace
lead shortlist. BBC News. 10 September 2013. Retrieved
11 September 2013.
[16] http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2013.html
[17] Lahiri, J.. Unaccustomed Earth.
[18] Shattuck, Kathryn (2010-11-12). Irrfan Khan in In
Treatment'". The New York Times.
[19] Claire Armitstead (22 January 2015). Jhumpa Lahiri
wins $50,000 DSC prize for south Asian literature. The
Guardian. Retrieved January 22, 2015.

External links
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EXTERNAL LINKS

10
10.1

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