Jhumpa Lahiri

Although born in London, Jhumpa Lahiri moved to Rhode Island when she was three and has lived in the United States for the better part of her life. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Lahiri dramatizes in much of her work the experiences of Indian immigrants. In her early work, such as the short story collection The Interpreter of Maladies, the focus is on first generation Indian Americans; in her later work she focuses more on the experiences of second- and third-generation Indian Americans. In all of her work she presents a nuanced picture of the competing forces that are a core feature of the immigrant experience—a desire to maintain the culture and traditions of one’s native culture and a desire to assimilate into the culture of one’s adopted country. Lahiri’s first published work, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her next work was the highly regarded novel The Namesake (2003), based, like much of her work, on personal and family history. Lahiri’s other work includes a second short story collection, Unaccustomed Earth (2008), and two novels, The Lowland (2018) and Whereabouts (2021). Lahiri wrote Whereabouts in Italian, following her interest in the Italian language and culture, an interest accompanied by a move to Italy with her family in 2012. Lahiri currently teaches creative writing at Barnard College and is actively involved with several arts-based organizations, including the PEN American Center.