Interpreter of Maladies

Interpreter of Maladies is Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize winning collection of short stories and her first significant published work. Her later works, The Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth, focus on the relationship between first and second generation Bengali immigrants, and often on their different experiences of love. Lahiri is always treating the boundary lines that exist between different types of people, sensitively portraying both sides of the boundaries. Like the unhappy translator for a doctor's office for whom the title short story is named, Lahiri is herself an interpreter of maladies.

The things that need to be translated for the reader in this first collection of hers are much more diverse than the difference between an arranged marriage and a chosen one--we see a friendship between a Pakistani man and an Indian family, a woman, not quite sane, who cleans an apartment building while loudly bemoaning the hardships of her life, a little American boy narrating his Indian babysitter's life, and a newly married Indian couple who finds kitschy Christian pieces hidden throughout the house that they bought.

Lahiri's writing is simple and plain--she describes people and their insecurities well, using a variety of different voices, from children to newly married adults to an old woman who sweeps the steps. She's psychologically insightful. I'm realizing how no-nonsense Lahiri's writing really is through its contrast to the next book I've picked up to read, which is also by an Indian author, but is a lot like magical realism.


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