Jhumpa Lahiri

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri burst onto the literary scene with her debut short story collection, ‘Interpreter of Maladies,’ published in 1999. This seminal work, exploring themes of identity and cultural experience, earned her the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000, along with the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction in the same year. Following this success, Lahiri published her critically acclaimed first novel, ‘The Namesake,’ in 2003, which was later adapted into a successful film in 2007. Her literary contributions continued with the short story collection ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ in 2008, which debuted at number one on The New York Times bestseller list and garnered the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.

McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Barnard College. A significant evolution in Lahiri’s career began with her move to Rome in 2012, where she committed to writing exclusively in Italian. This linguistic immersion yielded ‘In altre parole’ (2015), a memoir reflecting on her journey with the Italian language, followed by the novel ‘Dove mi trovo’ in 2018. Lahiri personally translated ‘Dove mi trovo’ into English, releasing it as ‘Whereabouts’ in 2021, showcasing her mastery across languages.

Through her celebrated works and unique linguistic journey, Lahiri continues to illuminate the immigrant experience and the complexities of human connection, offering profound insights for global audiences and establishing her as a singular voice in contemporary literature.