Interpreter of Maladies

Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant and touching stories, published in The New Yorker, examine cultural conflict and generational differences as they relate to love. In Lahiri's novella, A Temporary Matter, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai, who is famous for her work in this area on human relationships involving culture and generations.