An Interview with Jhumpa Lahiri

An Interview with Jhumpa Lahiri

Abstract

........................................................................................................................................................................ JULIA LEYDA Jhumpa Lahiri was born Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri in London in 1967. When she was 3 years old, her family moved to Rhode Island where her father worked as a university librarian. As she was growing up, her family frequently visited Calcutta to see their relatives. Lahiri majored in English at Barnard College; she then attended Boston University, completing master’s degrees in creative writing, English, and comparative literature and a PhD in Renaissance studies. She now lives in Brooklyn with her husband Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush and their two children, Octavio and Noor. Lahiri is the author of two short story collections and a novel, all of which have earned both critical and popular success, spending many weeks on bestseller lists and receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews. Her debut collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the New Yorker magazine’s debut of the year. Her 2003 novel, The Namesake, was a New York Times Notable Book, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was Contemporary Women’s Writing 5:1 January 2011. doi:10.1093/cwwrit/vpq006 © The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org .......................................................................................................................................................................................................