Jhumpa Lahiri: new books, used books, rare books by Lahiri, Jhumpa @ BookFinder.com

India Holy Song

by Xavier Zimbardo, Jhumpa Lahiri

ISBN 0847822915 (0-8478-2291-5)
Hardcover, Rizzoli International Publications, Incorporated

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'India Holy Song'

More editions of India Holy Song:

India Holy Song: ISBN 0847822915 (0-8478-2291-5)
Hardcover, Rizzoli International Publications, Incorporated

Interpreter of Maladies (0006551793) by Lahiri, Jhumpa

Interpreter of Maladies: Library Edition

by Jhumpa Lahiri

ISBN 0006551793 (0-00-655179-3)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Interpreter of Maladies'

Book summary:

Mr. Kapasi, the protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri's title story, would certainly have his work cut out for him if he were forced to interpret the maladies of all the characters in this eloquent debut collection. Take, for example, Shoba and Shukumar, the young couple in "A Temporary Matter" whose marriage is crumbling in the wake of a stillborn child. Or Miranda in "Sexy," who is involved in a hopeless affair with a married man. But Mr. Kapasi has problems enough of his own; in addition to his regular job working as an interpreter for a doctor who does not speak his patients' language, he also drives tourists to local sites of interest. His fare on this particular day is Mr. and Mrs. Das--first-generation Americans of Indian descent--and their children. During the course of the afternoon, Mr. Kapasi becomes enamored of Mrs. Das and then becomes her unwilling confidant when she reads too much into his profession. "I told you because of your talents," she informs him after divulging a startling secret.

I'm tired of feeling so terrible all the time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I've been in pain eight years. I was hoping you could help me feel better; say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy.

Of course, Mr. Kapasi has no cure for what ails Mrs. Das--or himself. Lahiri's subtle, bittersweet ending is characteristic of the collection as a whole. Some of these nine tales are set in India, others in the United States, and most concern characters of Indian heritage. Yet the situations Lahiri's people face, from unhappy marriages to civil war, transcend ethnicity. As the narrator of the last story, "The Third and Final Continent," comments: "There are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept." In that single line Jhumpa Lahiri sums up a universal experience, one that applies to all who have grown up, left home, fallen in or out of love, and, above all, experienced what it means to be a foreigner, even within one's own family. --Alix Wilber [via]

More editions of Interpreter of Maladies: Library Edition:

The Magic Barrel

by Jhumpa Lahiri

ISBN 0374525862 (0-374-52586-2)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Magic Barrel'

More editions of The Magic Barrel:

The Magic Barrel: ISBN 0374525862 (0-374-52586-2)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

via

Malgudi Days

by R.K. Narayan, Jhumpa Lahiri

ISBN 0143039652 (0-14-303965-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Malgudi Days'

Book summary:

Four gems, with new introductions, mark acclaimed Indian writer R. K. Narayan's centennial

Introducing this collection of stories, R. K. Narayan describes how in India "the writer has only to look out of the window to pick up a character and thereby a story." Powerful, magical portraits of all kinds of people, and comprising stories written over almost forty years, Malgudi Days presents Narayan's imaginary city in full color, revealing the essence of India and of human experience.

[via]

More editions of Malgudi Days:

Malgudi Days: ISBN 0143039652 (0-14-303965-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

via

The Man-Eater of Malgudi

by R.K. Narayan, Jhumpa Lahiri

ISBN 0140185488 (0-14-018548-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Man-Eater of Malgudi'

Book summary:

This is the story of Nataraj, who earns his living as a printer in the little world of Malgudi, an imaginary town in South India. Nataraj and his close friends, a poet and a journalist, find their congenial days disturbed when Vasu, a powerful taxidermist, moves in with his stuffed hyenas and pythons, and brings his dancing-women up the printer's private stairs. When Vasu, in search of larger game, threatens the life of a temple elephant that Nataraj has befriended, complications ensue that are both laughable and tragic. [via]

More editions of The Man-Eater of Malgudi:

The Man-Eater of Malgudi: ISBN 0140185488 (0-14-018548-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

The Namesake

by Jhumpa Lahiri

ISBN 0006551807 (0-00-655180-7)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Namesake : A Novel'

Book summary:

Any talk of The Namesake--Jhumpa Lahiri's follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut, Interpreter of Maladies--must begin with a name: Gogol Ganguli. Born to an Indian academic and his wife, Gogol is afflicted from birth with a name that is neither Indian nor American nor even really a first name at all. He is given the name by his father who, before he came to America to study at MIT, was almost killed in a train wreck in India. Rescuers caught sight of the volume of Nikolai Gogol's short stories that he held, and hauled him from the train. Ashoke gives his American-born son the name as a kind of placeholder, and the awkward thing sticks.

Awkwardness is Gogol's birthright. He grows up a bright American boy, goes to Yale, has pretty girlfriends, becomes a successful architect, but like many second-generation immigrants, he can never quite find his place in the world. There's a lovely section where he dates a wealthy, cultured young Manhattan woman who lives with her charming parents. They fold Gogol into their easy, elegant life, but even here he can find no peace and he breaks off the relationship. His mother finally sets him up on a blind date with the daughter of a Bengali friend, and Gogol thinks he has found his match. Moushumi, like Gogol, is at odds with the Indian-American world she inhabits. She has found, however, a circuitous escape: "At Brown, her rebellion had been academic ... she'd pursued a double major in French. Immersing herself in a third language, a third culture, had been her refuge--she approached French, unlike things American or Indian, without guilt, or misgiving, ore expectation of any kind." Lahiri documents these quiet rebellions and random longings with great sensitivity. There's no cleverness or showing-off in The Namesake, just beautifully confident storytelling. Gogol's story is neither comedy nor tragedy; it's simply that ordinary, hard-to-get-down-on-paper commodity: real life. --Claire Dederer [via]

More editions of The Namesake: