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Jhumpa Lahiri

Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri[1] (born July 11, 1967) is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.

Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri in 2015
BornNilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri
(1967-07-11) July 11, 1967 (age 56)
London, England
OccupationAuthor
Nationality
  • British
  • American
Education
Period21st century
GenreNovel, short story, postcolonial
Notable works
Notable awards
SpouseAlberto Vourvoulias-Bush (m. 2001)
Children2
Website
www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/jhumpalahiri/

Her debut collection of short-stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name.

The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was made into a major motion picture.[2] Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013)[3] was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction. On January 22, 2015, Lahiri won the US$50,000 DSC Prize for Literature for The Lowland.[4] In these works, Lahiri explored the Indian-immigrant experience in America.

In 2012, Lahiri moved to Rome, Italy and has since then published two books of essays, and began writing in Italian, first with the 2018 novel Dove mi trovo, then with her 2023 collection Roman Stories. She also compiled, edited, and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers. She has also translated some of her own writings and those of other authors from Italian into English.[5][6]

In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal.[5] She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022.[6] In 2022, she became the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater, Barnard College of Columbia University.[7]

Early and personal life edit

Lahiri was born in London, the daughter of Indian immigrants from the Indian state of West Bengal. Her family moved to the United States when she was three;[1] Lahiri considers herself an American and has said, "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 worked as a librarian at the University of Rhode Island;[1] the protagonist in "The Third and Final Continent", the story which concludes Interpreter of Maladies, is modeled after him.[8] Lahiri's mother wanted her children to grow up knowing their Bengali heritage, and her family often visited relatives in Calcutta (now Kolkata).[9]

When Lahiri began kindergarten in Kingston, Rhode Island, her teacher decided to call her by her familiar name Jhumpa because it was easier to pronounce than her more formal given names.[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."[10] Her ambivalence over her identity was the inspiration for the mixed feelings of Gogol, the protagonist of her novel The Namesake, over his own unusual name.[1] In an editorial in Newsweek, Lahiri claims that she has "felt intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new." Much of her experiences growing up as a child were marked by these two sides tugging away at one another. When she became an adult, she found that she was able to be part of these two dimensions without the embarrassment and struggle that she had when she was a child.[11]

Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College of Columbia University in 1989.[12]

Lahiri then earned advanced degrees from Boston University: an M.A. in English, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, an M.A. in Comparative Literature, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. Her dissertation, completed in 1997, was titled Accursed Palace: The Italian Palazzo on the Jacobean Stage (1603–1625).[13] Her principal advisers were William Carroll (English) and Hellmut Wohl (Art History). She took a fellowship at Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center, which lasted for the next two years (1997–1998). Lahiri has taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design.[citation needed]

In 2001, Lahiri married Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, a journalist who was then deputy editor of TIME Latin America, and who is now its senior editor. In 2012, Lahiri moved to Rome[14][15] with her husband and their two children, Octavio (born 2002) and Noor (b. 2005).[10]

On July 1, 2015, Lahiri joined the Princeton University faculty as a professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts.[16]

Literary career edit

Lahiri's early short stories faced rejection from publishers "for years".[17] Her debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, was finally released in 1999. The stories address sensitive dilemmas in the lives of Indians or Indian immigrants, with themes such as marital difficulties, the bereavement over a stillborn child, and the disconnection between first and second generation United States immigrants. Lahiri later wrote, "When I first 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."[18] 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."[19] 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][20]

In 2003, Lahiri published her first novel, The Namesake.[19] The theme and plot of this story was influenced in part by a family story she heard growing up. Her father's cousin was involved in a train wreck and was only saved when the workers saw a beam of light reflected off of a watch he was wearing. Similarly, the protagonist's father in The Namesake was rescued because his peers recognized the books that he read by Russian author Nikolai Gogol. The father and his wife emigrated to the United States as young adults. After this life-changing experience, he named his son Gogol and his daughter Sonali. Together the two children grow up in a culture with different mannerisms and customs that clash with what their parents have taught them.[21] A film 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".

Lahiri's 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.[22] New York Times Book Review editor, Dwight Garner, stated, "It's hard to remember the last genuinely serious, well-written work of fiction—particularly a book of stories—that leapt straight to No. 1; it's a powerful demonstration of Lahiri's newfound commercial clout."[22]

In February 2010, she was appointed a member of the Committee on the Arts and Humanities, along with five others.[23]

 
Lahiri in 2013

In September 2013, her novel The Lowland was placed on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize,[24][25] which ultimately went to The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. The following month it was also long-listed for the National Book Award for Fiction, and revealed to be a finalist on October 16, 2013.[26] However, on November 20, 2013, it lost out for that award to James McBride and his novel The Good Lord Bird.[26]

In December 2015, Lahiri published a non-fiction essay called "Teach Yourself Italian" in The New Yorker about her experience learning Italian.[27] In the essay she declared that she is now only writing in Italian, and the essay itself was translated from Italian to English. That same year, she published her first book in Italian, In altre parole, in which she wrote about her experience learning the language; an English translation by Ann Goldstein titled In Other Words was published in 2016.[28]

Lahiri was in the winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015 for her book The Lowland at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival for which she entered Limca Book of Records.[29]

In 2017, Lahiri received the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story.[30]

In 2018, Lahiri published her first novel in Italian, Dove mi trovo (2018). In 2019, she compiled, edited and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers. Lahiri later translated Dove mi trovo into English; the translation was published in 2021. In 2022, Lahiri published a new short story collection under the title Racconti Romani (Roman stories), the title being a nod to a book by Alberto Moravia of the same name. The English translation, Roman Stories, was published in October 2023, translated by Lahiri and Todd Portnowitz.

Literary focus edit

Lahiri's 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.[31][18] Lahiri's fiction 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 first-generation Indian American immigrants and their struggle to raise a family in a country very different from theirs. Her stories describe their efforts 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 onto the Indian tradition of a joint family, in which the parents, their children and the children's families live under the same roof.

Unaccustomed Earth departs from this earlier original ethos, as Lahiri's characters embark on new stages of development. These stories scrutinize the fate of the second and third generations. As succeeding generations become increasingly assimilated into American culture and are comfortable in constructing perspectives outside of their country of origin, Lahiri's fiction shifts to the needs of the individual. She shows how later generations depart from the constraints of their immigrant parents, who are often devoted to their community and their responsibility to other immigrants.[32]

Television edit

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 culture shock. Although she is credited as a writer on these episodes, her role was more as a consultant on how a Bengali man might perceive Brooklyn.[33]

Awards edit

Works edit

Novels edit

  • The Namesake. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2003.[37]
  • The Lowland (2013)
  • Dove mi trovo (in Italian). Milan: Guanda. 2018. ISBN 978-88-235-2136-0.

Short story collections edit

  • Interpreter of Maladies (1999)
    • "A Temporary Matter" (previously published in The New Yorker)
    • "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" (previously published in The Louisville Review)
    • "Interpreter of Maladies" (previously published in the Agni Review)
    • "A Real Durwan" (previously published in the Harvard Review)
    • "Sexy" (previously published in The New Yorker)
    • "Mrs. Sen's" (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)
    • "Unaccustomed Earth"
    • "Hell-Heaven" (previously published in The New Yorker)
    • "A Choice of Accommodations"
    • "Only Goodness"
    • "Nobody's Business" (previously published in The New Yorker)
    • "Once In A Lifetime" (previously published in The New Yorker)
    • "Year's End" (previously published in The New Yorker)
    • "Going Ashore"
    • "Hema and Kaushik"
  • Racconti romani (in Italian). Rome: Guanda. 2022.
    • "Il confine" (The Boundary)
    • "La riunione" (The Reunion)
    • "Le feste di P." (P.s Parties)
    • "Casa luminosa" (Luminous House)
    • "La scalinata" (The Stairway)
    • "Il ritiro" (Withdrawal)
    • "La processione" (The Procession)
    • I bigliettini (The Cards)
    • Dante Alighieri

Stories edit

  • Lahiri, Jhumpa (June 10–17, 2013). "Brotherly Love". The New Yorker. Vol. 89, no. 17. pp. 70–89.
  • Lahiri, Jhumpa (January-29-2018). "The Boundary" . The New Yorker.
  • Lahiri, Jhumpa (February-8-2021). "Casting Shadows" . The New Yorker.

Poetry edit

  • Il quaderno di Nerina (Italian) (2020)

Nonfiction edit

Books edit

  • In altre parole (Italian) (2015) (English translation published as In Other Words, 2016)
  • Il vestito dei libri (Italian) (English translation published as The Clothing of Books, 2016)
  • Translating Myself and Others (2022)

Essays, reporting and other contributions edit

Translations edit

  • Ties (2017), translation from Italian of Domenico Starnone's Lacci
  • Trick (2018), translation from Italian of Domenico Starnone's Scherzetto
  • Trust (2021), translation from Italian of Domenico Starnone's Confidenza

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Minzesheimer, Bob. "For Pulitzer winner Lahiri, a novel approach" July 4, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, USA Today, August 19, 2003. Retrieved on 2008-04-13.
  2. ^ "Jhumpa explores importance of book jackets in new work". India Today. Press Trust of India. January 23, 2017. from the original on November 25, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  3. ^ "The Man Booker Prize 2013 | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. from the original on April 4, 2023. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  4. ^ "Indian- American Author Jhumpa Lahiri won DSC Prize for 2015". India Today. January 23, 2015. from the original on November 25, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  5. ^ a b Gutting, Elizabeth Ward. "Jhumpa Lahiri: 2014 National Humanities Medal". National Endowment for the Humanities. from the original on July 1, 2019. Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  6. ^ a b "Jhumpa Lahiri: Professor of Creative Writing". Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University. from the original on June 15, 2019. Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  7. ^ "Jhumpa Lahiri '89 Returns to Barnard College as the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing". from the original on April 19, 2022. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
  8. ^ Flynn, Gillian. "Passage To India: First-time author Jhumpa Lahiri nabs a Pulitzer," December 31, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Entertainment Weekly, April 28, 2000. Retrieved on 2008-04-13.
  9. ^ Aguiar, Arun. "One on One With Jhumpa Lahiri" October 7, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Pifmagazine.com, July 28, 1999. Retrieved on 2008-04-13.
  10. ^ a b Anastas, Benjamin. "Books: Inspiring Adaptation" June 22, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Men's Vogue, March 2007. Retrieved on April 13, 2008.
  11. ^ "My Two Lives". Newsweek. March 5, 2006. from the original on December 5, 2018. Retrieved December 4, 2018.
  12. ^ "Pulitzer Prize awarded to Barnard alumna Jhumpa Lahiri ’89; Katherine Boo ’88 cited in public service award to The Washington Post" February 24, 2004, at the Wayback Machine, Barnard Campus News, April 11, 2000. Retrieved 2008-04-13.
  13. ^ ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (304346550)
  14. ^ Spinks, John. "A Writer's Room" April 23, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, August 25, 2013.
  15. ^ Pierce, Sheila (May 22, 2015). "Why Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri quit the US for Italy". Financial Times. Archived from the original on December 10, 2022. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  16. ^ Saxon, Jamie (September 4, 2015). . Research at Princeton, Princeton University. Archived from the original on June 15, 2018. Retrieved May 15, 2017.
  17. ^ Arun Aguiar (August 1, 1999). "Interview with Jhumpa Lahiri" August 23, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. Pif Magazine/ Retrieved September 4, 2015.
  18. ^ a b Lahiri, Jhumpa. "My Two Lives" January 7, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Newsweek, March 6, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-04-13.
  19. ^ a b Wiltz, Teresa. , The Washington Post, October 8, 2003. Retrieved on 2008-04-15.
  20. ^ Farnsworth, Elizabeth. "Pulitzer Prize Winner-Fiction" January 1, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, PBS NewsHour, April 12, 2000. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
  21. ^ Austen, Benjamin (September–October 2003). "In The Shadow of Gogol". New Leader. 86: 31–32.
  22. ^ a b Garner, Dwight. "Jhumpa Lahiri, With a Bullet" January 25, 2010, at the Wayback Machine The New York Times Paper Cuts blog, April 10, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-04-12.
  23. ^ "Barack Obama appoints Jhumpa Lahiri to arts committee", The Times of India, February 7, 2010
  24. ^ Masters, Tim (July 23, 2013). "Man Booker judges reveal 'most diverse' longlist". BBC. from the original on March 26, 2019. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  25. ^ "BBC News - Man Booker Prize 2013: Toibin and Crace lead shortlist". BBC News. September 10, 2013. from the original on September 10, 2013. Retrieved September 11, 2013.
  26. ^ a b "2013 National Book Awards" October 26, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. National Book Foundation. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
  27. ^ Lahiri, Jhumpa (November 29, 2015). "Teach Yourself Italian". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  28. ^ Lahiri, Jhumpa (2017). In other words. Ann Goldstein. London. ISBN 978-1-4088-6613-9. OCLC 949821672.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  29. ^ . Limca Book of Records. Archived from the original on August 8, 2016. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
  30. ^ "Jhumpa Lahiri Receives 2017 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story". Lewis Center for the Arts. May 25, 2017. from the original on December 16, 2018. Retrieved November 29, 2018.
  31. ^ Chotiner, Isaac. "Interviews: Jhumpa Lahiri" May 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, The Atlantic, March 18, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-04-12.
  32. ^ Lahiri, J.. Unaccustomed Earth.
  33. ^ Shattuck, Kathryn (November 11, 2010). "Therapy? Not His Cup of Tea". The New York Times. from the original on February 23, 2017. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
  34. ^ Claire Armitstead (January 22, 2015). "Jhumpa Lahiri wins $50,000 DSC prize for south Asian literature". The Guardian. from the original on January 29, 2015. Retrieved January 22, 2015.
  35. ^ "President Obama to Award 2014 National Humanities Medal". National Endowment for the Humanities. September 3, 2015. from the original on January 6, 2017. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
  36. ^ "American University of Rome, lauree honoris causa per Jhumpa Lahiri e Carlo Petrini". La Stampa. May 25, 2023. from the original on May 29, 2023. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
  37. ^ . kaitholil.com. Archived from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
  38. ^ "Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri". Penguin Random House. from the original on May 19, 2022. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
  39. ^ Title in the online table of contents is "In translation".

Further reading edit

  • Bilbro, Jeffrey (2013). "Lahiri's Hawthornian Roots: Art and Tradition in "Hema and Kaushik"". Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 54 (4): 380–394. doi:10.1080/00111619.2011.594461. S2CID 143938815.
  • Cussen, John. “the william morris in jhumpa lahiri’s wallpaper / and other of the writer’s reproofs to literary scholarship,” JEAL: Journal of Ethnic American Literature 2 (2012): 5-72.
  • Das, Subrata Kumar. "Bengali Diasporic Culture: A Study of the Film Adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake". The Criterion: An International Journal in English (ISSN 0976-8165) 4 (II), April 2013: np.
  • Leyda, Julia (January 2011). "An interview with Jhumpa Lahiri". Contemporary Women's Writing. 5 (1): 66–83. doi:10.1093/cwwrit/vpq006.
  • Majithia, Sheetal (Fall/Winter 2001). "" Samar 14: 52–53 The South Asian American Generation.
  • Mitra, Zinia. "Echoes of Loneliness: Dislocation and Human Relationships in Jhumpa Lahiri", Contemporary Indian Women Writers in English: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Nizara Hazarika, K.M. Johnson and Gunjan Dey.Pencraft International.(ISBN 978-93-82178-12-5), 2015.
  • Mitra, Zinia . " An Interpretation of Interpreter of Maladies", Jhumpa Lahiri : Critical Perspectives. Ed. Nigamananda Das. Pencraft International, 2008.(ISBN 81-85753-87-3) pp 95–104.
  • Reichardt, Dagmar. "Migrazione, discorsi minoritari, transculturalità: il caso di Jhumpa Lahiri", in: Scrivere tra le lingue. Migrazione, bilinguismo, plurilinguismo e poetiche della frontiera nell'Italia contemporanea (1980-2015), edited by Daniele Comberiati and Flaviano Pisanelli, Rome, Aracne, 2017 (ISBN 978-88-255-0287-9), pp. 77–92.
  • Reichardt, Dagmar. "Nomadische Literatur und Transcultural Switching: Jhumpa Lahiris italophones Migrationstagebuch 'In altre parole' (2015) – 'In Other Words' (2016) - 'Mit anderen Worten' (2017)", in: Eva-Tabea Meineke / Anne-Rose Mayer / Stephanie Neu-Wendel / Eugenio Spediacato (ed.), Aufgeschlossene Beziehungen: Italien und Deutschland im transkulturellen Dialog. Literatur, Film, Medien, "Rezeptionskulturen in Literatur- und Mediengeschichte" vol. 9 – 2019, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2019 (ISBN 978-3-8260-6257-5), pp. 243–266.
  • Reichardt, Dagmar. "", in: I , edited by Marina Geat, Rome, Roma TRE Press, 2017 (ISBN 978-88-94885-05-7), pp. 219–247.
  • Roy, Pinaki. "Postmodern Diasporic Sensibility: Rereading Jhumpa Lahiri's Oeuvre". Indian English Fiction: Postmodern Literary Sensibility. Ed. Bite, V. New Delhi: Authors Press, 2012 (ISBN 978-81-7273-677-4). pp. 90–109.
  • Roy, Pinaki. "Reading The Lowland: Its Highs and its Lows". Labyrinth (ISSN 0976-0814) 5(3), July 2014: 153–62.
  • Palmerino, Gregory, “The Immigrant and the Child at Home: Chiasmus as a Narrative Technique in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Mrs. Sen’s””, Journal of the Short Story in English [Online], 75 | Autumn 2020, Online since 1 December 2022. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jsse/3394

External links edit

External audio
  Writer Jhumpa Lahiri, Fresh Air, September 4, 2003
  • Official website
  • Jhumpa Lahiri: A Bibliography, First Editions
  • Jhumpa Lahiri - Critical Biography

jhumpa, lahiri, nilanjana, sudeshna, jhumpa, lahiri, born, july, 1967, british, american, author, known, short, stories, novels, essays, english, more, recently, italian, lahiri, 2015bornnilanjana, sudeshna, lahiri, 1967, july, 1967, london, englandoccupationa. Nilanjana Sudeshna Jhumpa Lahiri 1 born July 11 1967 is a British American author known for her short stories novels and essays in English and more recently in Italian Jhumpa LahiriLahiri in 2015BornNilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri 1967 07 11 July 11 1967 age 56 London EnglandOccupationAuthorNationalityBritishAmericanEducationColumbia University BA Boston University MA MFA MA PhD Period21st centuryGenreNovel short story postcolonialNotable worksInterpreter of Maladies 1999 The Namesake 2003 Unaccustomed Earth 2008 The Lowland 2013 Notable awards1999 O Henry Award 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2021 Dottorato Ad Honorem University of BolognaSpouseAlberto Vourvoulias Bush m 2001 Children2Websitewww wbr randomhouse wbr com wbr kvpa wbr jhumpalahiri wbr Her debut collection of short stories Interpreter of Maladies 1999 won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN Hemingway Award and her first novel The Namesake 2003 was adapted into the popular film of the same name The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was made into a major motion picture 2 Unaccustomed Earth 2008 won the Frank O Connor International Short Story Award while her second novel The Lowland 2013 3 was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction On January 22 2015 Lahiri won the US 50 000 DSC Prize for Literature for The Lowland 4 In these works Lahiri explored the Indian immigrant experience in America In 2012 Lahiri moved to Rome Italy and has since then published two books of essays and began writing in Italian first with the 2018 novel Dove mi trovo then with her 2023 collection Roman Stories She also compiled edited and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers She has also translated some of her own writings and those of other authors from Italian into English 5 6 In 2014 Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal 5 She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022 6 In 2022 she became the Millicent C McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater Barnard College of Columbia University 7 Contents 1 Early and personal life 2 Literary career 3 Literary focus 4 Television 5 Awards 6 Works 6 1 Novels 6 2 Short story collections 6 3 Stories 6 4 Poetry 6 5 Nonfiction 6 5 1 Books 6 5 2 Essays reporting and other contributions 6 6 Translations 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External linksEarly and personal life editLahiri was born in London the daughter of Indian immigrants from the Indian state of West Bengal Her family moved to the United States when she was three 1 Lahiri considers herself an American and has said 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 worked as a librarian at the University of Rhode Island 1 the protagonist in The Third and Final Continent the story which concludes Interpreter of Maladies is modeled after him 8 Lahiri s mother wanted her children to grow up knowing their Bengali heritage and her family often visited relatives in Calcutta now Kolkata 9 When Lahiri began kindergarten in Kingston Rhode Island her teacher decided to call her by her familiar name Jhumpa because it was easier to pronounce than her more formal given names 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 10 Her ambivalence over her identity was the inspiration for the mixed feelings of Gogol the protagonist of her novel The Namesake over his own unusual name 1 In an editorial in Newsweek Lahiri claims that she has felt intense pressure to be two things loyal to the old world and fluent in the new Much of her experiences growing up as a child were marked by these two sides tugging away at one another When she became an adult she found that she was able to be part of these two dimensions without the embarrassment and struggle that she had when she was a child 11 Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and received her B A in English literature from Barnard College of Columbia University in 1989 12 Lahiri then earned advanced degrees from Boston University an M A in English an M F A in Creative Writing an M A in Comparative Literature and a Ph D in Renaissance Studies Her dissertation completed in 1997 was titled Accursed Palace The Italian Palazzo on the Jacobean Stage 1603 1625 13 Her principal advisers were William Carroll English and Hellmut Wohl Art History She took a fellowship at Provincetown s Fine Arts Work Center which lasted for the next two years 1997 1998 Lahiri has taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design citation needed In 2001 Lahiri married Alberto Vourvoulias Bush a journalist who was then deputy editor of TIME Latin America and who is now its senior editor In 2012 Lahiri moved to Rome 14 15 with her husband and their two children Octavio born 2002 and Noor b 2005 10 On July 1 2015 Lahiri joined the Princeton University faculty as a professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts 16 Literary career editThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Jhumpa Lahiri news newspapers books scholar JSTOR February 2024 Learn how and when to remove this template message Lahiri s early short stories faced rejection from publishers for years 17 Her debut short story collection Interpreter of Maladies was finally released in 1999 The stories address sensitive dilemmas in the lives of Indians or Indian immigrants with themes such as marital difficulties the bereavement over a stillborn child and the disconnection between first and second generation United States immigrants Lahiri later wrote When I first 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 18 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 19 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 20 In 2003 Lahiri published her first novel The Namesake 19 The theme and plot of this story was influenced in part by a family story she heard growing up Her father s cousin was involved in a train wreck and was only saved when the workers saw a beam of light reflected off of a watch he was wearing Similarly the protagonist s father in The Namesake was rescued because his peers recognized the books that he read by Russian author Nikolai Gogol The father and his wife emigrated to the United States as young adults After this life changing experience he named his son Gogol and his daughter Sonali Together the two children grow up in a culture with different mannerisms and customs that clash with what their parents have taught them 21 A film 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 Lahiri s 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 22 New York Times Book Review editor Dwight Garner stated It s hard to remember the last genuinely serious well written work of fiction particularly a book of stories that leapt straight to No 1 it s a powerful demonstration of Lahiri s newfound commercial clout 22 In February 2010 she was appointed a member of the Committee on the Arts and Humanities along with five others 23 nbsp Lahiri in 2013 In September 2013 her novel The Lowland was placed on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize 24 25 which ultimately went to The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton The following month it was also long listed for the National Book Award for Fiction and revealed to be a finalist on October 16 2013 26 However on November 20 2013 it lost out for that award to James McBride and his novel The Good Lord Bird 26 In December 2015 Lahiri published a non fiction essay called Teach Yourself Italian in The New Yorker about her experience learning Italian 27 In the essay she declared that she is now only writing in Italian and the essay itself was translated from Italian to English That same year she published her first book in Italian In altre parole in which she wrote about her experience learning the language an English translation by Ann Goldstein titled In Other Words was published in 2016 28 Lahiri was in the winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015 for her book The Lowland at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival for which she entered Limca Book of Records 29 In 2017 Lahiri received the PEN Malamud Award for excellence in the short story 30 In 2018 Lahiri published her first novel in Italian Dove mi trovo 2018 In 2019 she compiled edited and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers Lahiri later translated Dove mi trovo into English the translation was published in 2021 In 2022 Lahiri published a new short story collection under the title Racconti Romani Roman stories the title being a nod to a book by Alberto Moravia of the same name The English translation Roman Stories was published in October 2023 translated by Lahiri and Todd Portnowitz Literary focus editLahiri s 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 31 18 Lahiri s fiction 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 first generation Indian American immigrants and their struggle to raise a family in a country very different from theirs Her stories describe their efforts 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 onto the Indian tradition of a joint family in which the parents their children and the children s families live under the same roof Unaccustomed Earth departs from this earlier original ethos as Lahiri s characters embark on new stages of development These stories scrutinize the fate of the second and third generations As succeeding generations become increasingly assimilated into American culture and are comfortable in constructing perspectives outside of their country of origin Lahiri s fiction shifts to the needs of the individual She shows how later generations depart from the constraints of their immigrant parents who are often devoted to their community and their responsibility to other immigrants 32 Television editLahiri 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 culture shock Although she is credited as a writer on these episodes her role was more as a consultant on how a Bengali man might perceive Brooklyn 33 Awards edit1993 TransAtlantic Award from the Henfield 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 Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2000 The Third and Final Continent 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 amp Wine Magazine 2002 Guggenheim Fellowship 2002 Nobody s 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 fiction translated into Italian for Unaccustomed Earth Una nuova terra translated by Federica Oddera Guanda 2014 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for The Lowland 34 2014 National Humanities Medal 35 2017 Pen Malamud Award 2023 Honorary Doctorate from The American University of Rome in recognition of her extraordinary contribution to literature in English and Italian 36 Works editNovels edit The Namesake Boston Houghton Mifflin 2003 37 The Lowland 2013 Dove mi trovo in Italian Milan Guanda 2018 ISBN 978 88 235 2136 0 Whereabouts Translated by Lahiri Jhumpa New York Knopf 2021 ISBN 978 0 593 31831 7 38 Short story collections edit Interpreter of Maladies 1999 A Temporary Matter previously published in The New Yorker When Mr Pirzada Came to Dine previously published in The Louisville Review Interpreter of Maladies previously published in the Agni Review A Real Durwan previously published in the Harvard Review Sexy previously published in The New Yorker Mrs Sen s 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 Unaccustomed Earth Hell Heaven previously published in The New Yorker A Choice of Accommodations Only Goodness Nobody s Business previously published in The New Yorker Once In A Lifetime previously published in The New Yorker Year s End previously published in The New Yorker Going Ashore Hema and Kaushik Racconti romani in Italian Rome Guanda 2022 Il confine The Boundary La riunione The Reunion Le feste di P P s Parties Casa luminosa Luminous House La scalinata The Stairway Il ritiro Withdrawal La processione The Procession I bigliettini The Cards Dante Alighieri Stories edit Lahiri Jhumpa June 10 17 2013 Brotherly Love The New Yorker Vol 89 no 17 pp 70 89 Lahiri Jhumpa January 29 2018 The Boundary The New Yorker Lahiri Jhumpa February 8 2021 Casting Shadows The New Yorker Poetry edit Il quaderno di Nerina Italian 2020 Nonfiction edit Books edit In altre parole Italian 2015 English translation published as In Other Words 2016 Il vestito dei libri Italian English translation published as The Clothing of Books 2016 Translating Myself and Others 2022 Essays reporting and other contributions edit The Magic Barrel Stories introduction by Bernard Malamud Farrar Straus and Giroux July 2003 Cooking Lessons The Long Way Home September 6 2004 The New Yorker Malgudi Days introduction by R K Narayan Penguin Classics August 2006 Rhode Island in State by State A Panoramic Portrait of America edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey Ecco September 16 2008 Improvisations Rice November 23 2009 The New Yorker Reflections Notes from a Literary Apprenticeship June 13 2011 The New Yorker The Suspension of Time Reflections on Simon Dinnerstein and The Fulbright Triptych edited by Daniel Slager Milkweed Editions June 14 2011 Lahiri Jhumpa December 7 2015 Teach yourself Italian Personal History The New Yorker Vol 91 no 39 Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein pp 30 36 39 Translations edit Ties 2017 translation from Italian of Domenico Starnone s Lacci Trick 2018 translation from Italian of Domenico Starnone s Scherzetto Trust 2021 translation from Italian of Domenico Starnone s ConfidenzaSee also edit nbsp Literature portal Lists of American writers List of Indian writersReferences edit a b c d e f g Minzesheimer Bob For Pulitzer winner Lahiri a novel approach Archived July 4 2012 at the Wayback Machine USA Today August 19 2003 Retrieved on 2008 04 13 Jhumpa explores importance of book jackets in new work India Today Press Trust of India January 23 2017 Archived from the original on November 25 2021 Retrieved November 25 2021 The Man Booker Prize 2013 The Booker Prizes thebookerprizes com Archived from the original on April 4 2023 Retrieved October 19 2022 Indian American Author Jhumpa Lahiri won DSC Prize for 2015 India Today January 23 2015 Archived from the original on November 25 2021 Retrieved November 25 2021 a b Gutting Elizabeth Ward Jhumpa Lahiri 2014 National Humanities Medal National Endowment for the Humanities Archived from the original on July 1 2019 Retrieved August 17 2018 a b Jhumpa Lahiri Professor of Creative Writing Lewis Center for the Arts Princeton University Archived from the original on June 15 2019 Retrieved August 17 2018 Jhumpa Lahiri 89 Returns to Barnard College as the Millicent C McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing Archived from the original on April 19 2022 Retrieved April 19 2022 Flynn Gillian Passage To India First time author Jhumpa Lahiri nabs a Pulitzer Archived December 31 2008 at the Wayback Machine Entertainment Weekly April 28 2000 Retrieved on 2008 04 13 Aguiar Arun One on One With Jhumpa Lahiri Archived October 7 2008 at the Wayback Machine Pifmagazine com July 28 1999 Retrieved on 2008 04 13 a b Anastas Benjamin Books Inspiring Adaptation Archived June 22 2008 at the Wayback Machine Men s Vogue March 2007 Retrieved on April 13 2008 My Two Lives Newsweek March 5 2006 Archived from the original on December 5 2018 Retrieved December 4 2018 Pulitzer Prize awarded to Barnard alumna Jhumpa Lahiri 89 Katherine Boo 88 cited in public service award to The Washington Post Archived February 24 2004 at the Wayback Machine Barnard Campus News April 11 2000 Retrieved 2008 04 13 ProQuest Dissertations amp Theses Global 304346550 Spinks John A Writer s Room Archived April 23 2017 at the Wayback Machine T The New York Times Style Magazine August 25 2013 Pierce Sheila May 22 2015 Why Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri quit the US for Italy Financial Times Archived from the original on December 10 2022 Retrieved June 20 2021 Saxon Jamie September 4 2015 Author Jhumpa Lahiri awarded National Humanities Medal Research at Princeton Princeton University Archived from the original on June 15 2018 Retrieved May 15 2017 Arun Aguiar August 1 1999 Interview with Jhumpa Lahiri Archived August 23 2015 at the Wayback Machine Pif Magazine Retrieved September 4 2015 a b Lahiri Jhumpa My Two Lives Archived January 7 2010 at the Wayback Machine Newsweek March 6 2006 Retrieved on 2008 04 13 a b Wiltz Teresa The Writer Who Began With a Hyphen Jhumpa Lahiri Between Two Cultures The Washington Post October 8 2003 Retrieved on 2008 04 15 Farnsworth Elizabeth Pulitzer Prize Winner Fiction Archived January 1 2014 at the Wayback Machine PBS NewsHour April 12 2000 Retrieved 2008 04 15 Austen Benjamin September October 2003 In The Shadow of Gogol New Leader 86 31 32 a b Garner Dwight Jhumpa Lahiri With a Bullet Archived January 25 2010 at the Wayback Machine The New York Times Paper Cuts blog April 10 2008 Retrieved on 2008 04 12 Barack Obama appoints Jhumpa Lahiri to arts committee The Times of India February 7 2010 Masters Tim July 23 2013 Man Booker judges reveal most diverse longlist BBC Archived from the original on March 26 2019 Retrieved July 23 2013 BBC News Man Booker Prize 2013 Toibin and Crace lead shortlist BBC News September 10 2013 Archived from the original on September 10 2013 Retrieved September 11 2013 a b 2013 National Book Awards Archived October 26 2018 at the Wayback Machine National Book Foundation Retrieved September 4 2015 Lahiri Jhumpa November 29 2015 Teach Yourself Italian The New Yorker Retrieved January 18 2019 Lahiri Jhumpa 2017 In other words Ann Goldstein London ISBN 978 1 4088 6613 9 OCLC 949821672 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link First Woman Winner of DSC Prize Limca Book of Records Archived from the original on August 8 2016 Retrieved June 20 2016 Jhumpa Lahiri Receives 2017 PEN Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story Lewis Center for the Arts May 25 2017 Archived from the original on December 16 2018 Retrieved November 29 2018 Chotiner Isaac Interviews Jhumpa Lahiri Archived May 9 2008 at the Wayback Machine The Atlantic March 18 2008 Retrieved on 2008 04 12 Lahiri J Unaccustomed Earth Shattuck Kathryn November 11 2010 Therapy Not His Cup of Tea The New York Times Archived from the original on February 23 2017 Retrieved February 25 2017 Claire Armitstead January 22 2015 Jhumpa Lahiri wins 50 000 DSC prize for south Asian literature The Guardian Archived from the original on January 29 2015 Retrieved January 22 2015 President Obama to Award 2014 National Humanities Medal National Endowment for the Humanities September 3 2015 Archived from the original on January 6 2017 Retrieved September 4 2015 American University of Rome lauree honoris causa per Jhumpa Lahiri e Carlo Petrini La Stampa May 25 2023 Archived from the original on May 29 2023 Retrieved May 29 2023 Life lessons to learn from The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri Kaitholil com kaitholil com Archived from the original on October 9 2022 Retrieved August 2 2022 Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri Penguin Random House Archived from the original on May 19 2022 Retrieved December 26 2020 Title in the online table of contents is In translation Further reading editBilbro Jeffrey 2013 Lahiri s Hawthornian Roots Art and Tradition in Hema and Kaushik Critique Studies in Contemporary Fiction 54 4 380 394 doi 10 1080 00111619 2011 594461 S2CID 143938815 Cussen John the william morris in jhumpa lahiri s wallpaper and other of the writer s reproofs to literary scholarship JEAL Journal of Ethnic American Literature 2 2012 5 72 Das Subrata Kumar Bengali Diasporic Culture A Study of the Film Adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri s The Namesake The Criterion An International Journal in English ISSN 0976 8165 4 II April 2013 np Leyda Julia January 2011 An interview with Jhumpa Lahiri Contemporary Women s Writing 5 1 66 83 doi 10 1093 cwwrit vpq006 Majithia Sheetal Fall Winter 2001 Of Foreigners and Fetishes A Reading of Recent South Asian American Fiction Samar 14 52 53 The South Asian American Generation Mitra Zinia Echoes of Loneliness Dislocation and Human Relationships in Jhumpa Lahiri Contemporary Indian Women Writers in English Critical Perspectives Ed Nizara Hazarika K M Johnson and Gunjan Dey Pencraft International ISBN 978 93 82178 12 5 2015 Mitra Zinia An Interpretation of Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri Critical Perspectives Ed Nigamananda Das Pencraft International 2008 ISBN 81 85753 87 3 pp 95 104 Reichardt Dagmar Migrazione discorsi minoritari transculturalita il caso di Jhumpa Lahiri in Scrivere tra le lingue Migrazione bilinguismo plurilinguismo e poetiche della frontiera nell Italia contemporanea 1980 2015 edited by Daniele Comberiati and Flaviano Pisanelli Rome Aracne 2017 ISBN 978 88 255 0287 9 pp 77 92 Reichardt Dagmar Nomadische Literatur und Transcultural Switching Jhumpa Lahiris italophones Migrationstagebuch In altre parole 2015 In Other Words 2016 Mit anderen Worten 2017 in Eva Tabea Meineke Anne Rose Mayer Stephanie Neu Wendel Eugenio Spediacato ed Aufgeschlossene Beziehungen Italien und Deutschland im transkulturellen Dialog Literatur Film Medien Rezeptionskulturen in Literatur und Mediengeschichte vol 9 2019 Wurzburg Konigshausen amp Neumann 2019 ISBN 978 3 8260 6257 5 pp 243 266 Reichardt Dagmar Radicata a Roma la svolta transculturale nella scrittura italofona nomade di Jhumpa Lahiri in I l pensiero letterario come fondamento di una testa ben fatta edited by Marina Geat Rome Roma TRE Press 2017 ISBN 978 88 94885 05 7 pp 219 247 Radicata a Roma la svolta transculturale nella scrittura italofona nomade di Jhumpa Lahiri Reichardt Il pensiero letterario come fondamento di una testa ben fatta Roy Pinaki Postmodern Diasporic Sensibility Rereading Jhumpa Lahiri s Oeuvre Indian English Fiction Postmodern Literary Sensibility Ed Bite V New Delhi Authors Press 2012 ISBN 978 81 7273 677 4 pp 90 109 Roy Pinaki Reading The Lowland Its Highs and its Lows Labyrinth ISSN 0976 0814 5 3 July 2014 153 62 Palmerino Gregory The Immigrant and the Child at Home Chiasmus as a Narrative Technique in Jhumpa Lahiri s Mrs Sen s Journal of the Short Story in English Online 75 Autumn 2020 Online since 1 December 2022 URL http journals openedition org jsse 3394External links edit nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Jhumpa Lahiri nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jhumpa Lahiri External audio nbsp Writer Jhumpa Lahiri Fresh Air September 4 2003 Official website Jhumpa Lahiri A Bibliography First Editions Jhumpa Lahiri Critical Biography Portals nbsp Biography nbsp USA nbsp Literature Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Jhumpa Lahiri amp oldid 1220786830, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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