I’ve never been a fan of short stories, but I adored Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth that came out about two years ago. Just like in her two previous books, The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies, Lahiri writes stories that revolve around relocated Bengali Americans and their adaptation to their new culture. It’s about arranged marriages and how they work out once they come across the ocean, the high expectations they have on their children, the traditions and past that bind them all together, love, hate, betrayal and connection.
As always with her writing, Lahiri brings you into a culture she knows and is magically able to spin stories with all different types of characters of all shapes and sizes. At the end of each story, she creates an ending you would never expect but perfectly ties up any loose ends. Each character is drawn to the past and the traditions they have been raised with.
I highly recommend it – you won’t be able to put this book down.
This is one of my fav writers. I am definetly picking this up.
thanks for mentioning this.
I just finished this! What a coincidence! I loved loved loved it!! I love everything she writes.