Interpreter of Maladies

This stunning debut short story 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 of the Bengali immigrant experience 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 Pulitzer Prize-winning 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.