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Entity loves Indian-American writer Jhumpa Lahiri.

#WomanCrushWednesday, or more commonly referred to as #wcw, celebrates inspirational women for their literary achievements. Seeking to spice things up, the writers at ENTITY would like to formally establish a new #wcw trend, the “Writer’s Crush Wednesday” to honor writers who remind us that nothing beats curling up with a good book. These authors are the women who inspire us to write and who teach us valuable life lessons through the clarity, elegance and power of their prose.

WRITER JHUMPA LAHIRI.

Lahiri was born Nilanjana Sudheshna Lahiri to Bengali parents after they relocated from Calcutta, India – now known as Kolkata – to London, England. Her father, a university librarian, then moved their family from London to South Kingstown, Rhode Island for work. In America, Nilanjana Sudheshna Lahiri became known as “Jhumpa” after schoolteachers didn’t put in the effort to call her by her full name. The name stuck.

She studied at Barnard College where she received her B.A. in English Literature and went on to achieve her doctorate in Renaissance studies at Boston University. Her first major work of literature, a compilation of short stories under the title “Interpreter of Maladies,” was published in 1999 and was met with acclaim in the United States, earning her a Pulitzer Prize in fiction. The narratives in the work center around Indian characters navigating American landscapes and experiences that Lahiri so perfectly depicts with her writing style and tactful language.

Drawing from her own feelings as an outsider when she was a child, Lahiri was able to use writing as a way to relate to other people who felt similarly, even though the experiences themselves were different from Lahiri’s own. It was through writing these narratives in her book that she was able to materialize these experiences, since her fear of them in her own life prevented her from living them out or confronting them.

Lahiri then wrote a second book, “The Namesake,” in 2003, engaging similar themes presented in her previous book. The novel, which should be on your list of good books to read, delves into the clashing of two distinct cultures as new ideologies, religions and social situations emerge. Once again, her simple yet elegant style and compelling story distinguished her as one of the great writers of this age. The novel was later adapted into a film in 2006. After finding her soulmate and marrying in 2001, Lahiri and her family moved to Italy, where she learned Italian.

This is where Lahiri’s life took a major turn. Lahiri believed that she was becoming too comfortable with the English language, which, in her view, could result in an artistic drought. Thus, she decided that learning Italian would reinvigorate her writing and refine her creativity and style. However, learning Italian was a long process, as Lahiri details in The New Yorker (an article written in Italian, translated into English). But because she was so committed, she decided to only read Italian literature. Despite her arduous journey, it was met with extreme satisfaction, as the writer confesses that “English [denoted] a heavy, burdensome aspect of [her] past,” and caused her significant anxiety.

Lahiri later published an autobiography in 2016, “In Other Words,” in Italian accompanied by an English translation. Today, the writer resides in Italy, where she believes that her new language, or “covering,” has caused her to “[take] root again, [growing] in a different way.”

Edited by Ellena Kilgallon
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