The Namesake

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri made this young author renowned as one of the most accomplished of her age. Her tales are among the extremely few collections and debut works that have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the highest acclaim from critics for its elegance, wit, and compassion in describing lives transplanted from India to America were among the many other distinctions and awards it garnered.

Lahiri expands on the themes of The Namesake, which helped her collection become a global bestseller: the experience of immigration, the collision of cultures, the difficulties associated with integration, and—most poignantly—the intricate relationships across generations. Once again, Lahiri demonstrates her skill at capturing the precise detail—the ephemeral instant, the subtle shift in expression—that unlocks vast emotional vistas.

The Ganguli family is followed in The Namesake from their traditional existence in Calcutta through their difficult transition to America. Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli go to Cambridge, Massachusetts, together soon after their planned marriage. Ashoke, an engineer by trade, adjusts to new situations far more easily than his wife, who despises anything American and longs for her family. The difficult process of naming their kid reveals the problematic effects of introducing traditional practices into a modern setting. Gogol Ganguli, whose Indian parents named him after a Russian writer in remembrance of a tragedy that occurred years ago, is unaware of anything other than the burdens of his ancestry and his peculiar, eccentric name.

As Gogol fumbles down the first-generation route, tumbling through humorous diversions, heartbreaking love relationships, and contradictory loyalties, Lahiri shows enormous empathy for Gogol. With sharp insight, she exposes the ways in which we gradually—and often painfully—come to identify ourselves, as well as the defining influence of the names and expectations our parents give us.