Birthday Special: Lesser Known Facts About Jhumpa Lahiri, 'The Namesake' Author, You Didn't Know

With her 52nd birthday today, we would like to share some interesting facts on bestselling author Jhumpa Lahiri, who gave us "The Namesake", "Interpreter of Maladies", "The Lowland" and more.

Did you know that Jhumpa's real name is Nilanjana Lahiri? She changed it because she realised that it was impossible to pronounce in American classrooms. So she adopted her nickname Jhumpa.

As a child, Lahiri had noticed how much her mother missed Calcutta, now Kolkata, and the social norms there and that is what has influenced her writings so far.

She has also won the Pulitzer prize for her so many books which talk on the immigrant story in America.

Her first novel ‘Namesake’, which was later adapted as movie, which featured actors like Irfan Khan, Tabu and Kal Penn, was set against the backdrop of a Bengali family who had migrated to the United States. Buy The Namesake at Rs 266 (paperback), here.

Her second novel called ‘The Lowland’ captures the atmosphere of the initial days of Naxalite Movement in Calcutta. Buy The Lowland 243, (Paperback) for Rs 243, here.

After writing in English for so long, Lahiri has decided to now write in Italian because of her fascination with the same. She first went to Italy when she was 20 on a holiday with her sister. She moved to Rome with her family in 2012, in order to write from there.

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She is a Barnard College, Columbia University, graduate and she did her MFA from Boston University.

Did you know that she was awarded the 2014 National Medals of Arts and Humanities by former US President Barack Obama at the White House? She was awarded for her exemplary writings which centred around Indo-American experience from an Indian migrant's point of view.

She is also a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She was appointed by the US president Barack Obama in 2010.

In 2000, for her first collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), Lahiri became the youngest recipient in the history of the Pulitzer Prizes to receive the award in fiction.