Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, byname of Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri, is an English-born American novelist and short-story writer whose works explore the immigrant experience, and that of East Indians in particular. In English, she has written two short-story collections, “Interpreter of Maladies” and “Unaccustomed Earth,” and two novels, “The Namesake” and “The Lowland.” Her style of writing is noted for being simple and journalistic and with limited use of metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech.
Lahiri has also published several works in Italian, including two works of non-fiction: “In altre parole” and “Il vestito dei libri,” the novel “Dove mi trovo,” and a volume of poetry called “Il quaderno di Nerina.”
Lahiri was born in London to Bengali parents from Calcutta (now Kolkata) and moved with her family to the United States when she was three. Her parents remained committed to their East Indian culture and raised her to take pride in her cultural heritage. As a child, her teacher decided to call her by her familiar name, Jhumpa, because it was easier to pronounce than her more formal given names. Lahiri would struggle to reconcile what felt like being of two separate worlds and cultural displacement until she was an adult.
Lahiri wrote prolifically for years before attending college, but did not commit to a writer’s life until after she graduated in 1989 with a degree in English literature from Barnard College. She also obtained three master’s degrees in English, creative writing, and comparative literature and arts and a doctorate in Renaissance studies from Boston University.
Lahiri’s debut collection of short stories, “Interpreter of Maladies,” won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award. Several of these stories had previously appeared in The New Yorker, and she was the recipient of an O. Henry Award for the title story. Her debut novel, the best-seller “The Namesake,” explores many of the same emotional and cultural themes and was adapted into a popular film of the same name. Other awards include the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for her book “The Lowland,” and a National Humanities Medal awarded by President Barack Obama.