Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri

Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, a debut collection of short stories, is nothing less than a work of art. Ms. Lahiri won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Literature, and other prizes as well, for good reason.

The cast of characters is interesting and quite far-ranging: a young American boy, a middle-aged man giving tours in India, a young American woman. All the stories involve Indian immigrants or their children and take place mostly in the U.S.

Navigating between the Indian traditions they’ve inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In “A Temporary Matter,” published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout.

In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant. She is an important and powerful new voice