Does it sometime seem to you as though Indian novelists are muscling into the ranks of top English-language writers, making their way onto the best-seller lists and snapping up a disproportionate share of the literary awards? No? Think of Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Chanda, Kiran Desai, Aravind Adiga, and don’t forget Salman Rushdie. And that’s just those who come to mind without effort. Within this pantheon of literary overachievers, the Anglo-American author Jhumpa Lahiri fits comfortably.
Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for her first collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies. The Lowland, the second of Lahiri’s novels, was shortlisted for the National Book Award. (Her first novel wasn’t overlooked, either, gaining bestseller status and receiving rave reviews like pretty much everything else she’s written.)
On one level, The Lowland reflects two sides of its author’s persona—her Bengali heritage (though she was born in the UK) and her upbringing in Rhode Island. The novel’s action is divided between the middle-class precincts of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and the academic world of Rhode Island. The plot revolves around two momentous incidents, one taking place in Kolkata in 1971, the other in Rhode Island twelve years later.
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (2013) 340 pages ★★★★★
Two Bengali brothers, one a marine biologist, the other a Maoist revolutionary fighter
In another sense, the novel is a tale of two Bengali brothers, preternaturally close in their youth, whose passions take them in divergent directions. Subhash, older by fifteen months, emerges as the protagonist, pursuing a vocation for marine biology through graduate studies, laboratory work, and teaching in Rhode Island. The more adventurous Udayan becomes caught up in the violent revolutionary politics of the Naxalite Rebellion, a Maoist insurgency that continues to rage throughout much of northeastern and southern India.
Lahiri’s sense of history and its consequences is as insightful as her grasp of the human heart. She weaves her tale with a sure hand around the threads of the two brother’s intersecting lives. She moves swiftly back and forth from one continent to the other and ranges across the seven decades from Subhash’s birth in 1943 to the 21st century. It’s difficult to read this story without succumbing to the illusion that Lahiri’s vividly drawn characters are real. The Lowland is a sad story of love and loss, but a hopeful one nonetheless. Lahiri never lets us get lost in despair, finding hope and possibility in birth, renewal, and forgiveness.
About the author
Nilanjana Sudeshna “Jhumpa” Lahiri is the author of three novels, two in English and one in Italian, as well as dozens of short stories. She earned the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her debut, a collection of short stories. She is Anglo-American, born in London in 1967 of Indian immigrant parents from the state of West Bengal. Lahiri holds numerous degrees, beginning with a BA from Barnard College, where she now Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing. She also earned three master’s and a PhD from Boston University. She is married to a journalist and lives in Rome.
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