The Namesake

The Namesake is a novel by the distinguished American writer Jhumpa Lahiri, who is known for her traditional narrative style often dealing with sensitive issues of immigrant life and culture clash. First published in 2003, this is her first novel, originally published in The New Yorker in shorter form, and it follows an immigrant Bengali family in America and the way its members adapt to a culture and society very different to their own. The novel was adapted into a movie by acclaimed Indian American director Mira Nair in 2006.

The novel’s author, Jhumpa Lahiri, was born in 1967 London to a family from the Indian state of West Bengal and grew up in America. She writes in English and Italian, and her style is often characterized by simple, descriptive sentences with little dialogue. She is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. She has been awarded the National Humanities Medal and teaches at Princeton University.

Other works by this author include The Lowland, Unaccustomed Earth, and Interpreter of Maladies.