Today we will be reviewing a book with short stories in it. We don’t normally review short stories on this blog but the book is an exception because of how good it is. That’s right, we will be reviewing Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of short stories about identity. Who we are and in how the geographical location effects our identity. Each story has its specific meaning but they vary about topics like love, marriage, a place we can call home and what we consider as home.
Lahiri’s writing is beautiful and makes you ache for a place you have never been to. She understands the pain of being away from home and not belonging. We can move halfway around the globe and still will hold our first home dear to us.
Published in 1999, the nine stories in Interpreter of Maladies won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and went on to win the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award in 2000. It also made Oprah Winfrey’s top ten list. If you made it to Oprah’s booklist, then you have officially made it.
The book went on to sell over 15 million copies worldwide. That is an impressive debut for any author. To add to her resume, Lahiri wrote the popular book, The Namesake.
Not many authors can make such a big debut. But if the writing is amazing, then the work will speak for itself. I really enjoyed reading the short stories and recommend them to fans of short stories about love and identity.