Background/Context on Jhumpa Lahir, Author of Interpreter of Maladies:
Jhumpa Lahir was born in London, England to Bengali parents. Her parents had moved from Kolkata, a city in India, to London and then the United States where they continued to foster deep ties with their Indian roots and were committed to their culture. This, in turn, set up a strong cultural background in Lahir herself, despite being born and growing up in different countries. She has dedicated her writing and mostly focuses on the experiences of East Indian immigrants in her works.
Lahir actually hadn’t started to write until after she graduated from Barnard College in 1989 where she studied literature. After she graduated, she began to pursue three different master’s degrees in English, creative writing, and comparative studies. She also has a Ph.D. in Renaissance studies from Boston University. During this time, she began writing short stories, some of which would be compiled into Interpreter of Maladies.
Interpreter of Maladies, her first book, is a compilation of nine short stories Lahir had written previously, several of which had already been published in the New Yorker. This book was published in 1999 where it was immediately well received and was awarded the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and made Jhumpa Lahir the first person of South Asian descent to win this award. The nine stories take place in both Kolkata, India and the East Coast of the United States, telling the views of both Indians living in India and Indian immigrants living in the United States of America. Although she had never lived in India, she would visit Kolkata several times to visit extended family and to familiarize herself with the city. Her stories give insight to the Indian and Indian immigrant experience where she touches upon topics such as arranged marriage, affairs, alienation, cultural displacement, miscarriage, and identity.
Works Cited:
“Interpreter of Maladies: Context | SparkNotes.” SparkNotes: Today’s Most Popular Study Guides, www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/interpreter-of-maladies/context/.
“Jhumpa Lahiri Biography.” Chicago Public Library, 31 Oct. 2006, www.chipublib.org/jhumpa-lahiri-biography/.
“Jhumpa Lahiri.” Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/biography/Jhumpa-Lahiri.