Author Jhumpa Lahiri has appeared on this blog before, here and here. I like her enough to return for another helping, a short story collection this time, Interpreter of Maladies.

Lahiri writes about Indian expats in America. Her characters live in Boston suburbs, in Connecticut towns. In these stories, we see a couple grieving a stillborn baby, a wife too timid to drive on American streets, a couple buying a house filled with surprises. We see the characters calling home for war news, or returning for a bride. And sometimes Lahiri takes us right back to the homeland. We meet a poor woman, hired to sweep the stairs of a flat-building, who insists that she once led a queenly life. Or we meet a cluster of neighbors, conferring over how to cure the strange girl with the terrible seizures. Then there’s the tour guide who, at his day job, interprets for patients visiting the doctor; thus the title of the book.

In no-frills language, Lahiri pulls back the curtain on another culture. We peek in on their dinners — the eggplant, the spiced nuts, the rice and the mustard oil. We witness their monsoons, their boycotts of the local storekeepers, their constant trips between the old home and the new in America.

Interpreter of Maladies won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize.

Photo credits:

Couple: jit bag on VisualHunt / CC BY

Bejeweled woman:  paulchapmanphotos on Visualhunt.com/ CC BY-NC-ND

Spices: sara marlowe on VisualHunt / CC BY