Novels
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Elegant, subtle and moving, this is an incredible best-selling first novel from Pulitzer Prize winning author, Jhumpa Lahiri. Brought up as an Indian in suburban America, Gogol Ganguli soon finds himself itching to cast off his awkward name, just as he longs to leave behind the inherited values of his Bengali parents. And so, he sets off on his own path through life, a path strewn with conflicting loyalties, love and loss!
About the author:
Jhumpa Lahiri was born 1967 in London, England, and raised in Rhode Island. She is a graduate of Barnard College, where she received a B.A. in English literature, and of Boston University, where she received an M.A. in English, M.A. in Creative Writing and M.A. in Comparative Studies in Literature and the Arts, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies.
Her debut collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was translated into twenty-nine languages and became a bestseller both in the United States and abroad. In addition to the Pulitzer, it received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Addison Metcalf Award, and a nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
The Namesake is Jhumpa Lahiri’s first novel. She lives in New York with her husband and son.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
In this enchanting tale about the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening, two hapless city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China’s infamous Cultural Revolution. There they discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation and steal “subversive” novels of Honore de Balzac, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, and Gogol and read them to the daughter of the local tailor. While reading, both boys fall in love with the girl, and, through Balzac, discover “awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden”. The unsophisticated girl is deeply affected and inspired by the literature and seeks to escape from the limitations of her life. This is a book about the power of art to enlarge our imaginations and the power of literature to free the mind.
Trivia:
The novel was made into a film and was France’s nominee for Best Foreign Film at Golden Globe Award 2003.
About the author:
Born in China in 1954, Dai Sijie is a filmmaker who was himself “re-educated” between 1971 and 1974. He left China in 1984 for France, where he has lived and worked ever since. This, his first novel, was an overnight sensation when it appeared in France in 2000, becoming an immediate best-seller and winning five prizes. Rights to the novel have been sold in nineteen countries.
Short Stories
“Winterscape” from Diamond Dust: Stories By Anita Desai
Winterscape” details how the aunt and mother of an Indian married to a Canadian visit the couple and their newborn son and, as the unfamiliar snow falls, understand the great cultural differences that separate them.
“Lions in Winter” from Lions in Winter: Stories by Wena Poon
Wena Poon provides an insight to the quiet lives of displaced Singaporeans living abroad in the eyes of her protagonist Freddie.
About the Authors :
- Anita Desai was born and educated in India. Her published works include award-winning novels, three of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
- Wena Poon was born in Singapore and has lived in Hong Kong and the U.S. She studied literature and law at Harvard University and currently lives in San Francisco, California.