Interpreter of Maladies
With accomplished precision and gentle eloquence, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the crosscurrents set in motion when immigrants, expatriates, and their children arrive, quite literally, at a cultural divide.
A blackout forces a young Indian American couple to make confessions that unravel their tattered domestic peace. An Indian American girl recognizes her cultural identity during a Halloween celebration while the Pakastani civil war rages on television in the background. A latchkey kid with a single working mother finds affinity with a woman from Calcutta. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession.
Imbued with the sensual details of Indian culture, these stories speak with passion and wisdom to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner. Like the interpreter of the title story, Lahiri translates between the strict traditions of her ancestors and a baffling new world.
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Keywords/Themes
Cultural identity, assimilation, American culture, Indian American identity, immigration, identity, cultural heritage, love, marriage, Indian culture, alienation, language barriers, history, colonialism.
Book Review & Recommended Use in Classroom
Jhumpa Lahiri’s lyrical writing is introspective with subtle detail and depth and a joyful read. Her stories are gripping, such as „When Mr. Pirzada came to dine” where the main character recalls her childhood in autumn of 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War. The story not only hints on the history of the war of independence between West and East Pakistan but also brings up the struggles and assimilation of Indian immigrants in the USA. Halloween is mentioned alongside the scenes of the main character’s parents, watching the political developments of the war on TV. The story lends itself for explorations of American culture as well as an insight into the history of Colonial India. Another worthwhile story is “The Third and Final Continent,” which is one of the longer stories in the collection and deals with a young Indian immigrant, who rents a room at an elderly widow’s house. His struggle to adjust to the American way of life and his search for a new identity is carried by the humorous encounters with his peculiar landlady. The story addresses immigration, assimilation, American culture and identity issues.
(Miriam O., June 2025)
Sensitive Content
Infidelity, pain of losing a child
About the Author
Jhumpa Lahiri (born Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri on July 11, 1967, in London) is an acclaimed Indian‑American author who moved to the United States at age three and was raised in Rhode Island. She earned degrees from Barnard College and Boston University before debuting with Interpreter of Maladies (1999), which won the Pulitzer Prize. Her exploration of immigrant identity continued in novels such as The Namesake and The Lowland. Lahiri later embraced writing in Italian after relocating to Rome and served as Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton from 2015 to 2022, currently holding a faculty position at Barnard College.
