Jhumpa Lahiri Overview

Jhumpa Lahiri's career should have been doomed as soon as she won the Pulitzer Prize for her first published book, the short story collection Interpreter of Maladies.  But her subsequent releases have found her unmoored by the attention and expectations that met her debut effort, and, as a result, her more recent work bears the same confidence, thoughtfulness, and consideration as her earliest, fêted publications; where she might have opted for the dumb, ostensible grandiosity of vision and statement that many lesser writers may have felt their responsibility upon receiving such notice and demanding such great expectations, Lahiri continued to pursue what fascinated her from the beginning of her writing career: the nuances of relationships and individuals, the effects of change, the fleeting, piquant sadnesses and happinesses of life – in short, a true grandiosity of vision and statement that few other writers are capable of.  Her work bears the mark of a precise thinker and deliberate wordsmith, disciplined enough to not allow the curiosity and eagerness of her thought to precede her obligation to do it justice.