Annotation
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.
Awards
1999 Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year
2000 The New Yorker Book Awards
2000 Pulitzer Prize
1999 Ernest Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
| Genre | Collection Fiction Sociological Domestic Literary |
| Topics | East Indian Americans East Indian culture Cultural identity Immigrants Cultural assimilation |
| Setting | India |