Jhumpa Lahiri

“When I first started writing I was not conscious that my subject was the Indian-American experience. What drew me to my craft was the desire to force the two worlds I occupied to mingle on the page as I was not brave enough, or mature enough, to allow in life,” Jhumpa Lahiri wrote in a 2006 Newsweek article. Lahiri, who was born in London and moved to the U.S. with her Bengali parents as a young child, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies (1999), her debut short story collection, which sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. She continued to focus on the lives of Indian immigrants with her first novel, The Namesake (2003), which was later adapted into a popular film. Lahiri returned to short stories with the New York Times bestseller Unaccustomed Earth (2008), followed by her second novel, The Lowland (2013), shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction. Her latest book, In Other Words (2016), is a memoir written — in Italian — while she and her family lived in Rome. " Updated 2018