Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri was born Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri in London to Bengali parents and moved to the United States at age two. She studied at Barnard College and earned multiple advanced degrees from Boston University, including a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. Lahiri’s literary debut, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her first novel, The Namesake (2003), explored identity and assimilation through the life of a Bengali-American. In Unaccustomed Earth (2008), she presents interconnected stories about Bengali-American experiences with cultural displacement and family dynamics, receiving critical and commercial acclaim. Later works include The Lowland (2013), focusing on political activism and family, and Whereabouts (2021), written in Italian and self-translated into English. Lahiri has earned numerous honors, including the National Humanities Medal and the Commendatore of the Italian Republic.