Jhumpa Lahiri, one of the best female authors in India, was presented with the National Humanities Medal by Barrack Obama, the US President last year for her outstanding contribution in the fields of art and humanities. Her beautiful narratives of the NRIs and other Indian-Americans-their life, experience on the foreign soil that they have known as their own, their sorrows and longings, have all won her a place in the fore-front of the luminaries of humanities. The medal was awarded to her in the East Room of the White House in presence of some of the biggest literary personalities of the current times. Her latest non – fictional literary work “In Other Words” novel is in essence a love story. This latest book is one of her finest creations.

Jhumpa Lahiri Family, Age, Wiki

Born with the real name Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri to Bengali parents, Jhumpa’s date of birth is 11 July 1967. She received her college education from the Barnard College and subsequently from Boston University. Her father, Amar Lahiri worked as a Librarian at the University of Rhode Island, while her mother Tapati, has always been very keen to keep her children’s Indian ties and Bengali bondage intact.

Jhumpa has a sister name Simanti Lahiri. Originally hailing from Indian nationality with the birth place being at Kolkata, West Bengal, Jhumpa has always looked upon herself as a trueborn American. Jhumpa Lahiri wiki tells us that the author is 49 years of age and carries herself well in her height of 5 feet 7 or so.

Jhumpa Lahiri Writing Career, Early Books, Accolades

The foremost of the best-selling female writers of India Jhumpa Lahiri had some rejections in the very beginning. Her first successful short stories collection, Interpreter of Maladies was published in 1999. This debut short story depicts the ups and downs in the lives of the emigrants from India to the States. The stories have subjects ranging from detachment between two generations of American immigrants, marital problems, divorce, and lamentations of a mother and so on.

Jhumpa has opined that her sole aim has remained to integrate the two worlds that she has always known to be her own, on the same page through her pen. This book, although applauded by the critics in the USA, was criticized by the Indians for portraying her fellow Indians in a negative tone. The unique writing style of the collection won the Pulitzer Prize for Friction in the year 2000, and has sold an astounding 6,00,000 copies all over the world by far.

The Namesake and Other Writings of Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa, the fantastic fiction female writer had her first novel out in 2003. It was called “The Namesake” and it dealt in the affairs of the Ganguli family, who moved to the USA as a young couple, and then brought up two kids Gogol and Sonia, who were all American in their outlooks. The huge generation gap between Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli and their children and the cultural mismatch have been portrayed in the book too well.

Jhumpa Lahiri added another feather to her achievements when “The Namesake” was adapted for a movie starring Bollywood big shots Irrfan Khan, the versatile actress Tabu and Kal Penn as Gogol. The movie was directed by Mira Nair. It was featured in the Venice Film Festival, and received nomination for the Gotham Award for Best Film in 2007 and also won the “Golden Aphrodite” in Love is Folly International Film Festival in Bulgaria in the same year.

In April 2008, Jhumpa Lahiri published her second collection of short stories named Unaccustomed Earth. Immediately on release, the collection topped the New York Times Best Seller List. It was a rare achievement, and showed the commercial clout of Jhumpa Lahiri.

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

In 2013, Jhumpa came up with her second novel “The Lowland” which has since then won nominations for Man Booker Prize, National Book Award for Fiction, Goodreads Choice Awards Best Fiction. The story highlights the life in Kolkata during the Naxalite Movement and how it influences the lives of two brothers Subhash and Udayan. It is about how they grow up differently, find their loves, lose them, how Udayan dies, how Subhas marries Udayan’s wife Gauri and becomes a loving father to Udayan’s daughter Bela.

In April 2014 the novel was shortlisted for an award the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and is also the winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. In 2013, “The Lowland” novel by Jhumpa Lahiri was nominated for the Man Booker Prize. Some of her other best books include some non – fictional works like “The Long Way Home”, “Cooking Lessons”, “Teach Yourself Italian”, “The New Yorker” and so on.

Jhumpa Lahiri Marriage, Husband, Divorce, Kids

Indian author Jhumpa Lahiri biography reveals that after some relationships in college, Jhumpa had her real love affair when she met the journalist named Alberto Vourvoulias, which later became author Jhumpa Lahiri husband name. They were married in 2001 and had two children, son name being Octavio and daughter name being Noor.

Jhumpa Lahiri Upcoming Novels, Latest Buzz

Her latest non – fictional literary work “In Other Words” novel is in essence a love story. This latest book is one of her finest creations. Jhumpa talks about her upcoming novels in her Twitter account from which we come to know the interesting facts about her books. She was asked in Diaspora interview about a career in poems, the author talks about her quotes which are as good as poems to her. With a high net worth, Jhumpa now works as the professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University since July 1, 2015.