Jhumpa Lahiri Biography and latest books by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian American author who has already sealed her name in the world of literature. Her writings are known for the use of simple English along with her characters which are mostly Indian immigrants in the United States. She is the recipient of Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her work in Interpreter of Maladies which is a collection of short stories. She’s also appointed by President of United States, Barack Obama to be a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

Jhumpa Lahiri was born as Nilajana Sudeshna on 11 July, 1967 in London, England. Her parents were Bengali immigrants in England. From there the family moved to the United States when she was just three years old. As a child, she grew up in Kingston, Rhode Island where her father Amar Lahiri worked as a Librarian in the University of Rhode Island. Jhumpa graduated from South Kingston High School. She later earned her Bachelors Degree in English Literature from Barnard College in the year 1989. Lahiri then moved to Boston University where she earned multiple Master degrees in English, Comparative literature, and Creative Writing. Later on she received her Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies from Boston University. Following this she began teaching creative writing in Boston University and Rhode Island School of Design.

Her short stories collection was initially rejected by numbers of publishers, but it finally saw the dawn of the day in the year 1999. Interpreter of Maladies won her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year.

The book is a collection of stories which were all about the dilemmas of the Indian immigrants with themes like disconnect between the first and second generation of Indian Americans, marital difficulties and miscarriages. When the book was published in the United States it was received very well by the American critics. However it was received with mixed reviews when it was released in India. In the first year of publication itself, 200,000 copies of the book was sold out.

In the year 2003, Lahiri’s first novel, The Namesake was published. The book was further made into a movie by renowned film director, Mira Nair. The movie starred two Bollywood actors, Irrfan Khan and Tabu, along with Kal Penn, an American Indian actor. The movie was very well received and got many critical acclaims.
Lahiri’s next book, Unaccustomed Earth, was again a collection of short stories. The book was published on April 1, 2008. And as soon as the book was released, it shot to the number 1 spot on The New York Times best seller. Lahiri also published number of short stories in The New Yorker magazine.

From the year 2005, Jhumpa Lahiri has been the Vice President of PEN American Centre. The organization’s main focus is to promote intellectual cooperation along with friendship among writers.
She has been married to Alberto Vourvoulias, a journalist. At present she and her husband live in Brooklyn, New York with their two children Octavio and Noor.

Submitted by Precious Pheirim.