Jhumpa Lahiri

The Namesake

Born to Bengali parents in London in 1967, Jhumpa Lahiri grew up in Rhode Island. Her father, a university librarian, and her mother, a schoolteacher, were traditional people; their marriage was arranged, they revered their native land and customs, and never felt at home in America. Jhumpa dressed in jeans and was desperate to assimilate. The family made frequent trips to Calcutta, which reinforced Lahiri’s sense that she belonged to neither place.

From The Namesake:

“On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of green chili pepper, wishing there were mustard oil to pour into the mix…Even now that there is barely space inside her, it is the one thing she craves.”

Lahiri started writing while still in grade school and later worked on the school paper. But even after studying English at Barnard, she felt unworthy to embrace her writing self. Instead, she remained in academia, completing multiple master’s degrees and a PhD in Renaissance studies at Boston University.

Her writing career proper began in 1997, when she began a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Providence. Within two years she secured representation and saw the publication of her short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, a first for an Indian woman.

The following year she married Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, a journalist of Guatemalan/Greek American descent, in a traditional Bengali wedding in Calcutta’s Singhi Palace. They live in Brooklyn, New York, with their children, Octavio and Noor.

ALSO RECOMMENDED:

Unaccustomed Earth. A collection of eight transcendent, exquisitely written stories about the secrets of family life.

Classic Champagne Cocktail

At their wedding, which is not the blissful event most newly-weds typically hope for, the Namesake characters Nikhil and Moushumi drink champagne.

1 sugar cube

2–3 dashes Angostura bitters

Champagne

1 oz. brandy

Orange slice for garnish

Maraschino cherry for garnish

Place a sugar cube in the bottom of a Champagne flute. Use the dashes of bitters to saturate the cube. Add the brandy. Fill with Champagne and garnish with a twist of lemon or orange and a cherry. Serves 1.