The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri's first book, Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a rare feat for a short stories collection and even more notable for a debut work of fiction. This award affirmed the New Yorker Magazine’s summer fiction issue of 1999 that included Lahiri among the “20 best young fiction writers in America.” (Beachcomber)


Lahiri once again amazes readers with smooth and elegant prose in her novel, The Namesake. The Namesake is the story of the Ganguli family; Bengali immigrant parents and their American-born children. Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli, who were united through an arranged marriage, have difficulty assimilating to American customs and culture, while their children cannot entirely relate to their Indian heritage. The story is mainly about Gogol, one of the children, and how he reacts to his name in America and how he can live in America and yet respect his culture.

I'm going to see the film tomorrow with a couple of friends and I'm eagerly looking forward to it. See the trailer for the film below.

Readers' Guide

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (and the film)

From Amazon.com:

Any talk of The Namesake--Jhumpa Lahiri's follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut, Interpreter of Maladies--must begin with a name: Gogol Ganguli. Born to an Indian academic and his wife, Gogol is afflicted from birth with a name that is neither Indian nor American nor even really a first name at all. He is given the name by his father who, before he came to America to study at MIT, was almost killed in a train wreck in India. Rescuers caught sight of the volume of Nikolai Gogol's short stories that he held, and hauled him from the train. Ashoke gives his American-born son the name as a kind of placeholder, and the awkward thing sticks.

And now there's the film of the same name directed by Mira Nair and starring Kal Penn.

Read an extensive review here.

theteach