Nilanjan lahiri biography of william
At Home Abroad
A HUSH FELL OVER the large dining room at the stately Guildhall in London when Robert Macfarlane, the British travel writer who chaired the jury for the Man Booker Prize this year, walked to the podium with the name of the winner known only to him and four other judges. This was the last year Britain’s most prestigious literary prize would go to a writer exclusively from the Commonwealth.
From next year, the doors would open to the United States—the only large English-speaking country whose authors don’t qualify for the prize. Writers from the Commonwealth would still be eligible, but opening the prize to Americans raises two risks—one, that American authors might win the prize easily; the other, that fiction from Commonwealth countries, which has to struggle hard to get noticed, and which has had a good run at the Booker, will now suffer. American prizes, such as the Pulitzer and the National Book Awards, are open only to Americans. Man Booker runs the risk of becoming the Commonwealth version of that very British institution, Wimbledon, where outsiders dominate.
To some critics, the barbarians were already at the gate. Three of the short-listed novelists this year have lived a large part of their lives in America, and their connection with the Commonwealth is not strong: NoViolet Bulawayo, born in Zimbabwe (no longer a Commonwealth member), lives in the United States, and Ruth Ozeki was born in Connecticut to Japanese and American parents, and has taken Canadian nationality. And then there is Jhumpa Lahiri, born to Indian parents in Britain, who moved to the United States at the age of two, and has recently moved to Italy.
Many critics have strong views about the Man Booker Prize opening its doors to American authors. “Well that’s the end of the Booker Prize, then,” wrote the novelist Philip Hensher in The Guardian, quoting a London literary agent. Hensher was a judge in 2001, long-listed the following year (for The Mulberry Empire)
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Jhumpa Lahiri, an established contemporary writer, is best known for her novel The Namesake and her short story collection Interpreter of Maladies. Lahiri's parents are two big influences in her writing, as her family moved to the United States from London when she was two-years-old. Her own struggles have also been reflected in her work, since her own heritage differentiates from American traditions. The main theme expressed in her writing has been Indian immigrants and the struggles they face coming to the United States.
- Real name: Nilanjana Sudheshna Lahiri
- Born on July 11, 1967 in London, England
- Parents were a Bengali couple who immigrated to the United Kingdom from Calcutta, India (Related to Namesake with Ashima and Ashoke)
- She doesn’t consider her childhood happy “I thought that there was no place, no land that I could go there and say I'm home.”
- Father was a university librarian (like the narrator in Third and Final Continent) and ended up relocating to the U.S in Rhode Island- moved to U.S at age 2
- Mother arranged trips to Calcutta to try and keep Bengali traditions
- Family nickname was Jhumpa- teachers called her that in school (uses this idea in the Namesake)
- Studied at Barnard College in New York- focused on English Literature
- Went on to Boston University- earning three master’s degrees
- Received doctorate in Renaissance studies
- Established Contemporary London- born Indian American writer
- Began career as a teacher at the Rhode Island School of Design and Boston University
- Lahiri’s novel, The Lowland, was inspired by political events happening in the real world.
-This was based on a true story about two brothers, one involved in India’s Naxalite movement and the other involved with research in the United States.
- Many of Lahiri’s writings are influenced by her life in both India and the United States.
- Lahiri says, “it do
- Jhumpa lahiri age
Jhumpa Lahiri
British-American author (born 1967)
Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri (born July 11, 1967) is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.
Her debut collection of short-stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name.
The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was made into a major motion picture.Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013) was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction. On January 22, 2015, Lahiri won the US$50,000 DSC Prize for Literature for The Lowland. In these works, Lahiri explored the Indian-immigrant experience in America.
In 2012, Lahiri moved to Rome and has since then published two books of essays, and began writing in Italian, first with the 2018 novel Dove mi trovo, then with her 2023 collection Roman Stories. She also compiled, edited, and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers. She has also translated some of her own writings and those of other authors from Italian into English.
In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022. In 2022, she became the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater, Barnard College of Columbia University.
Early and personal life
Lahiri was born in London, the daughter of Indian immigrants from the Indi
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