Jhumpa Lahiri Biography

• Interpreter of Maladies
• The Namesake
• Unaccustomed Earth
• One World: A Global Anthology of Short Stories
• Only Goodness: Family Snapshots
• The Lowland
• In Other Words
• Hell-Heaven
• The Clothing of Books

Nilanjana Sudeshna “Jhumpa” Lahiri ( born on July 11, 1967) is an Indian American author. Lahiri’s debut short story collection Interpreter of Maladies (1999) won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. She was born Nilanjana Sudeshna but goes by her nickname (or in Bengali, her “Daak naam”) Jhumpa.Lahiri is a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama.Her book The Lowland, published in 2013, was a nominee for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction. Lahiri is currently a professor of creative writing at Princeton University.

Lahiri was born in London, the daughter of Bengali Indian emigrants from the state of West Bengal. Her family moved to the United States when she was two; Lahiri considers herself an American, stating, “I wasn’t born here, but I might as well have been.”Lahiri grew up in Kingston, Rhode Island, where her father Amar Lahiri works as a librarian at the University of Rhode Island; he is the basis for the protagonist in “The Third and Final Continent,” the closing story from Interpreter of Maladies.Lahiri’s mother wanted her children to grow up knowing their Bengali heritage, and her family often visited relatives in Calcutta (now Kolkata).

When she began kindergarten in Kingston, Rhode Island, Lahiri’s teacher decided to call her by her pet name, Jhumpa, because it was easier to pronounce than her “proper name.”Lahiri recalled, “I always felt so embarrassed by my name…. You feel like you’re causing someone pain just by being who you are.” Lahiri’s ambivalence over her identity was the inspiration for the ambivalence of Gogol, the protagonist of her novel The Namesake, over his unusual name. Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College in 1989.

Lahiri then received multiple degrees from Boston University: an M.A. in English, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, an M.A. in Comparative Literature, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She took a fellowship at Province town’s Fine Arts Work Center, which lasted for the next two years (1997–1998). Lahiri has taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design.

In 2001, Lahiri married Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, a journalist who was then deputy editor of TIME Latin America, and who is now senior editor of TIME Latin America. Lahiri lives in Rome, Italy with her husband and their two children, Octavio (b. 2002) and Noor (b. 2005).Lahiri joined the Princeton University faculty on July 1, 2015 as a professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts.

Pulitzer Prize for Debut

Upon completing a Provincetown, Cape Cod, residency, Lahiri was able to share with the world her first book, a collection of nine stories, Interpreter of Maladies, published in 1999. The work’s depth-driven plots allowed glimpses into the lives of characters both in India and the States. Interpreter won an array of honors, including the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Hemingway Award.

In 2003, Lahiri followed up with The Namesake, a novel that followed the lives, perspectives and changing family ties of the Gangulis, an Indian couple in an arranged marriage who relocate to America. The work was adapted into a 2007 Mira Nair film starring Irfan Khan and Tabu, with Lahiri acknowledging that she felt a connection to the director’s sensibilities.