The daughter of Indian immigrants from West Bengal, Jhumpa Lahiri spent her formative years in America, but she is keenly aware of her Bengali inheritance. Her short-story collections (Interpreter of Maladies, published in 1999 and winner of a Pulitzer Prize, and Unaccustomed Earth, published in 2008) and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), have explored tensions between Bengali cultural traditions and Western modernity, and the conflict between family duty and individual freedom. 

Subscribe or Sign In to read the full article