Famous Indian American Author Jumpa Lahiri was born on July 11, 1967 in an Bangali Indian family and is winner of Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Lahiri is a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama.Lahiri then received multiple degrees from Boston University: an M.A. in English, M.F.A. in Creative Writing, M.A. in Comparative Literature, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She took a fellowship at Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center, which lasted for the next two years. Lahiri has taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design.Her debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, was released in 1999. The stories address sensitive dilemmas in the lives of Indians or Indian immigrants, with themes such as marital difficulties, miscarriages, and the disconnection between first and second generation United States immigrants.
Lahiri published The Namesake, her first novel. The story spans over thirty years in the life of the Ganguli family. The Calcutta-born parents emigrated as young adults to the United States, where their children, Gogol and Sonia, grow up experiencing the constant generational and cultural gap with their parents. A film adaptation of The Namesake was released in March 2007, directed by Mira Nair and starring Kal Penn and Bollywood stars Tabu and Irrfan Khan.
Lahiri's writing is characterized by her "plain" language and her characters, often Indian immigrants to America who must navigate between the cultural values of their homeland and their adopted home.
Lahiri's fiction is autobiographical and frequently draws upon her own experiences as well as those of her parents, friends, acquaintances, and others in the Bengali communities with which she is familiar. Lahiri examines her characters' struggles, anxieties, and biases to chronicle the nuances and details of immigrant psychology and behavior.
Her major writings are:
The Namesake
Unaccustomed Earth
A Real Durwan and Other Stories(unpublished)
The Magic Barrel
State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America
Cooking Lessons: The Long Way Home
"Reflections: Notes from a Literary Apprenticeship"
Accursed Palace: The Italian Palazzo on the Jacobean Stage(unpublished)