Here is a brief profile and biography of Jhumpa
Lahiri. Read for information on The Namesake author Jhumpa Lahiri.
Jhumpa Lahiri
Born: July 1967
Achievement: First Asian to win Pulitzer Prize. She won the 2000
Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her book "Interpreter Of Maladies"
Jhumpa Lahiri is a famous Indian American author of Bengali origin. Her
first novel, "The Namesake" was a major national bestseller
and was named the New York Magazine Book of the Year. Jhumpa Lahiri
became the first Asian to win the Pulitzer Prize when she won the 2000
Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her book "Interpreter Of Maladies".
Jhumpa Lahiri was born in July 1967 in London and was raised in Rhode
Island. Jhumpa is an alumnus of Barnard College, where she received a
B.A. in English literature, and of Boston University, where she received
an M.A. in English, M.A. in Creative Writing and M.A. in Comparative
Studies in Literature and the Arts, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies.
She took up a fellowship at Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center for two
years. Jhumpa Lahiri also taught creative writing at Boston University
and Rhode Island School of Design.
Much
of Jhumpa Lahiri's fiction deals with the lives of Indian-Americans,
particularly Bengalis. Her debut collection "Interpreter of
Maladies" won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was a
collection of nine distinct short stories addressing the sensitive
dilemmas in the lives of Indians or Indian immigrants. "The
Namesake", her second book and first novel, came out in 2003. It
was named the New York Magazine Book of the Year. Mira Nair is making an
eponymous film based on the novel.
Jhumpa Lahiri has won a number of awards. These include: TransAtlantic
Award from the Henfield Foundation (1993), O. Henry Award for short
story "Interpreter of Maladies" (1999), PEN/Hemingway Award
(Best Fiction Debut of the Year) for "Interpreter of Maladies"
(1999), Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters (2000), The New Yorker's Best Debut of the Year for "Interpreter
of Maladies" (2000), M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award from
the James Beard Foundation (2000), and Guggenheim Fellowship (2002).
