Tag: fiction

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Interpreter Of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri is a collection of nine short stories that won the Pulitzer Prize, the Pen/Hemingway Award and the New Yorker’s Debut Book of the Year in 2000. 

Lahiri tells the story of several characters as they try to find their place in the world. The book begins with a collection of short stories interconnected by their shared theme: what it means to be an immigrant or an outsider in America. In each story, a character feels like they do not belong—either because they have moved from another country to America or were born here but don’t quite fit in with those around them. Cultural displacement and the pathos of human loneliness cuts across the nine stories where the characters are continuously grappling with their identity.

I remember reading this book as a young girl, ready to leave home to pursue higher studies at Delhi University. What resonated with me was the universality of her characters and their struggle to find new meanings of familiarity and what they would eventually call or understand as ‘home.’ 

Appealing and Connecting

Structure

Lahiri employs the elements of the Story Spine much too cleverly. Although it is a collection of short stories, it places the nine stories in an order that adheres to the guidelines of good storytelling, including:

1. The Beginning 

2. The Event 

3. The Middle 

4. The Climax 

5. The End  

A perfect marriage of themes and language

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One of the many strengths that Lahiri displays, along with the relatability and humanness of her characters, is the simplicity and clarity of her writing that makes for an instant connection between her characters and the readers. The characters that populate Lahiri’s world live in the tense duality of being exiles but are proud to have left India to build a prosperous life in the West. However, the central theme that emerges through colourful details of Indian tradition, cuisine and celebrations are that of the universal struggle of adapting to the ways of a foreign homeland without losing one’s original roots. Their pain and angst intertwine with that of the reader, making it an intensely personal experience. 

So whether it’s the married couple who rediscover each other after living together for years in the same house due to a power cut or the story which chronicles an affair between an aimless young American girl and a married Indian man – the stories probe into hope, pain, guilt, desire, dreams and temptation where Lahiri moves beyond a specific cultural identity, and plot to capture human elements, hence connecting to the very heart of its readers. 

Lahiri’s Women

Finally, the women in Lahiri’s stories bring to mind other immigrant writers such as Jamaica Kincaid, Maxine Hong Kingston and Zora Neale Hurston. They all offer reactions against their culture’s view of gender roles, combining quiet strength with courage and rebellion.

There’s a story for everyone! 

Interpreter of Maladies is both beautifully melancholic and seemingly uplifting in a cathartic way. The amalgamation of intense nostalgia coupled with the mundane quality of its characters’ everyday life makes this a story that has travelled well and beyond into the hearts of many around the globe. She is a master storyteller who knows when to pull in her audience for that personal experience, almost as if she is offering front-row seats with a promise of a special peek just for you.