Who is Jhumpa Lahiri?
What is Jhumpa Lahiri’s mother tongue and what is her relationship to this language?
Bengali. She feels exiled from this language because she can't read or write it.
What does Jhumpa Lahiri portray in the short story collection Interpreter of Maladies?
In the short story collection Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri portrays the Indian American experience and how difficult the immigration process is. The feeling of being exiled from both one's homeland and the country they currently reside in is something she talks about in these short stories.
What was the perception of her work in America?
Overwhelmingly positive. Won multiple awards including Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, and was chosen as New Yorker’s Best Debut of the Year.
What was Lahiri’s upbringing like?
Born in London but moved to Rhode Island at the age of 3. Her parents were immigrants from West Bengali and her relatives are from Calcutta, India.
What was Jhumpa Lahiri’s first novel she wrote in Italian?
Jhumpa Lahiri's first novel she wrote in Italian was In altre parole, which translates to “In Other Words.” She describes her journey as she fell in love with the Italian language.
What culture and place does Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies represent?
Lahiri talks about her parent's hometown of Calcutta in Interpreter of Maladies, specifically the short story of "Mrs. Sen's." The large emphasis on community and the importance of seafood in Calcutta is something that Lahiri discusses.
What was a common consensus between the critics of her work?
Besides praising Lahiri’s use of diction and describing her writing style as “uncommon poise and [elegant],” the main consensus of her writing was how diverse the view on Indian Americans was. Instead of branding them as a whole group, the multiple separate communities that were present in the story was well received amongst critics.
How is the life of Jhumpa Lahiri intertwined with the people/culture portrayed in Interpreter of Maladies?
Jhumpa Lahiri was well aware growing up that her family did not fit in in America. She felt distanced from her Indian culture and did not feel quite at home in America, almost as if she was hovering between two places. This feeling in Jhumpa's own life was a theme that she brought into her novels.
Why did Jhumpa Lahiri want to learn Italian and what steps did she take to pursue this dream?
Jhumpa Lahiri wanted to learn Italian because it was a dream “keeping alive a language that has nothing to do with [her] life”. She read books in Italian, went to different Italian teachers, and even moved her entire family to Rome.
What recurring themes are present within other works of Jhumpa Lahiri?
Lahiri discusses the difficulties of being caught between two cultures in her first novel titled Namesake, which is a theme that she also discussed in Interpreter of Maladies. The story moves through events set in Calcutta, New York, and Boston.
Was the reaction different between different demographics of people?
The concerns have been different amongst different audiences. In the Indian audience especially, there have been more questions regarding identity and self-representation.
Was Lahiri’s intention when starting Interpreter of Maladies to write a story collection on the Indian-American experience?
“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." -Jhumpa Lahiri