Interpreter of Maladies

By Jhumpa Lahiri

Book Overview

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE - PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD WINNER.

With a new foreword by Domenico Starnone, this stunning debut collection flawlessly charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations.

With accomplished precision and gentle eloquence, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the crosscurrents set in motion when immigrants, expatriates, and their children arrive, quite literally, at a cultural divide.

A blackout forces a young Indian American couple to make confessions that unravel their tattered domestic peace. An Indian American girl recognizes her cultural identity during a Halloween celebration while the Pakastani civil war rages on television in the background. A latchkey kid with a single working mother finds affinity with a woman from Calcutta. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession.

Imbued with the sensual details of Indian culture, these stories speak with passion and wisdom to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner. Like the interpreter of the title story, Lahiri translates between the strict traditions of her ancestors and a baffling new world.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0358213266
• ISBN13: 9780358213260
• Release Date: October 2019
• Publisher: Mariner Books Classics
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

A fantastic collection of short stories

These stories were absolutely incredible and the story, for which the book is named, may be the best of them all

6 Stars!

If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would! That's all I'll say! Enjoy it!

So good, I've already given away my copy to a friend!

I picked this up in Dubai and started reading one story.....just to pass the time in my hotel room.....and then I couldn't put it down until I'd finished the entire book.I am not a big reader of short stories, prefering the longer journey of the novel. However, Ms. Lahiri is such a gifted writer I will gladly read anything she comes out with next. The magic of this collection of stories is in how well drawn her characters are...she brings them to life, you understand their motivations, their choices, their story.....you don't feel as if they and you are simply being manipulated for the sake of a clever plot line the author wants to try out. In fact, most of the stories are not exotic, outlandish, mawkish stories.....they are vignettes from everyday life. Observations of ordinary people whose ordinary lives become sweet and memorable under the careful scrutiny of the author. The lasting impression is a greater appreciation of our lives and the stories we live from day to day.I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Interpreting maladies.

An Interpreter of Maladies is not, as Mrs. Das thinks (and as the reader of Jhumpa Lahiri's stories may initially be thinking, too), a medical doctor or a psychologist; someone who interprets the origin and meaning of his patients' various illnesses and malaises and then prescribes the adequate treatment. No: an Interpreter of Maladies is someone who helps them communicate, who speaks the patients' language and is therefore able to translate their personal representation of their feelings to the listener who then, in turn, must come up with his own interpretation of those representations. And like Mr. Kapasi, the improbable hero of this collection's title story, Ms. Lahiri merely gives an account of her characters' feelings and situation in life at one particular moment - she rarely judges them, nor does she strive to tell the entire story of their lives; even where, as in "The Third and Final Continent," the narrative covers several decades, it is truly only one brief but crucial period which is important. No sledgehammer is being wielded; Lahiri's tone is subtle, subdued - like any good interpreter, she talks in a low voice, just loud enough for her listener/reader to understand; and you have to want to listen to her. If you expect her to shout, to force her account on you in bullet points and bold strikes, you will miss the many finer nuances in between. Jhumpa Lahiris heroes are Asian and American, they live in India, Pakistan, London and the U.S., and they eat (and painstakingly slowly prepare) delicious, spicy and flavorful food. Many of the stories deal with emotions and life situations which, although they happen to be experienced by Indians and Asian Americans here, are truly universal - the slow and unspoken death of a marriage ("A Temporary Matter"), prejudice against the unknown, particularly when it comes in the form of an illness ("The Treatment of Bibi Haldar"), the frustrations of a life of unfulfilled promises ("Interpreter of Maladies"), and the multilateral deceptions of marital infidelity ("Sexy"), blunted by the trappings of middle class materialism (again, the title story). Most of Lahiri's Asian American protagonists belong to the "intellectual" upper middle class suburbian population of Boston and other East Coast cities. While on the one hand this is a plus, because that is the author's own background, too, and therefore a segment of society she can describe from personal experience - which also allows her to make these characters particularly accessible - it on the other hand provides for the story collection's one deficiency; in that it renders her portrayal of Asian Americans (whether recent immigrants or second- and third-generation U.S. citizens) unnecessarily unilateral, to the point of bordering on stereotype - more precisely, the Indian version of the stereotypes generally associated with this part of society. Nevertheless, most of Jhumpa Lahiri's often unlikely heroes are portrayed in great depth, and

Story telling at its best...

I loved reading Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Interpreter of Maladies'.Being an Indian myself, I'm tired of reading books that package India's 'exoticism' to the West. Jhumpa Lahiri's stories do not revolve around the "Indianness" of the characters.India is always in the background, but the characters and their emotions are simply human.In the 'Interpreter of Maladies', Ms. Lahiri's breathtakingly beautiful, yet simple style of storytelling tells you a story about people who just happen to be Indian.The narrative she employs is very humane, with a lot of attention to detail. The stories are strong and delicate at the same time.I particularly enjoyed the title story 'Interpreter of Maladies' and the last story 'The Third and Final continent'.Another aspect of her writing I particularly liked is that she doesn't drown the story in style. The narrative occupies centerstage and the story telling is natural, not contrived.Looking forward to her next bookMekhala Vasthare

Every me and every you

This collection of stories taking place either in India or New England explores the differing ways people can be foreigners in strange or familiar ways and lands. Lahiri's eloquent storyweaving is full of humor and confusion, and is an utter joy to read. I look forward to a full novel by her.

One worth more than Amazon sells it for!

Jhumpa Lahiri writes with such vision and clarity of prose, it seems the stories she writes could not have been written another way. The stories and characters are so alive that I felt I was no longer reading, but rather witnessing them...standing just a few steps away from the characters.