The Namesake
By Jhumpa Lahiri
(Mariner Books, Paperback, 9780618485222, 304pp.)
Publication Date: September 2004
Other Editions of This Title: Compact Disc (August 1, 2006), Paperback (September 2004), Hardcover (September 2004), Audio Cassette (August 2004), Compact Disc (December 2003), Hardcover (September 2003), Audio Cassette (September 2003)
Categories: Literary
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Jhumpa Lahiri's debut story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, took the literary world by storm when it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Fans who flocked to her stories will be captivated by her best-selling first novel, now in paperback for the first time. The Namesake is a finely wrought, deeply moving family drama that illuminates this acclaimed author's signature themes: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the tangled ties between generations.
The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of an arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ashoke does his best to adapt while his wife pines for home. When their son, Gogol, is born, the task of naming him betrays their hope of respecting old ways in a new world. And we watch as Gogol stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.
With empathy and penetrating insight, Lahiri explores the expectations bestowed on us by our parents and the means by which we come to define who we are.
Jhumpa Lahiri was born 1967 in London, England, and raised in Rhode Island. She is a graduate of Barnard College, where she received a B.A. in English literature, and of Boston University, where she received an M.A. in English, M.A. in Creative Writing and M.A. in Comparative Studies in Literature and the Arts, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She has taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Her debut collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was translated into twenty-nine languages and became a bestseller both in the United States and abroad. In addition to the Pulitzer, it received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Addison Metcalf Award, and a nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Lahiri was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002. The Namesake is Jhumpa Lahiri's first novel. She lives in New York with her husband and son.
"Dazzling...An intimate, closely observed family portrait." The New York Times
"Splendid." Time Magazine
"Hugely appealing." People Magazine
"What sets Lahiri apart is simple yet richly detailed writing that makes the heart ache as she meticulously unfolds the lives of her characters." USA Today
A Best Book of the Year: New York Times, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, San Jose Mercury News.
New York Magazine Book of the Year
"An exquisitely detailed family saga...More than fulfills the promise of Lahiri's Pulitzer-winning collection." Entertainment Weekly
This book is on these lists:
Bethalyssa's Wish List by bethalyssa2009 Holiday Books by JLuckett
Books I want to read/ own by tiff4reading
Jreyn17's Wish List by jreyn17
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