Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri in 2015
Lahiri in 2015
BornNilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri
(1967-07-11) July 11, 1967 (age 57)
London, England
OccupationAuthor
Nationality
Education
Period21st century
GenreNovel, short story, postcolonial
Notable works
Notable awards
Spouse
Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush
​
​
(m. 2001)​
Children2
Website
www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/jhumpalahiri/

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.[2]

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.[3] Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013)[4] 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.[5] 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.[6][7]

In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal.[6] She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022.[7] 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.[8]

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ "Author Jhumpa Lahiri declines NYC's Noguchi Museum award after keffiyeh ban". Al Jazeera. Retrieved September 30, 2024.
  3. ^ "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.
  4. ^ "The Man Booker Prize 2013 | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. Archived from the original on April 4, 2023. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  5. ^ "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.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ "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.