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Jhumpa Lahiri

Object Details

Exhibition Label
Born London, England
Born in London to Bengali parents, Jhumpa Lahiri moved to Rhode Island at age two. She has said that while growing up, she did not feel fully at home in the United States or in India: “At many times in my life, I wished I could be like any other American . . . feel really a part of it, really woven into it. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t do it. And all of my writing has come out of that.” As an adult, Lahiri earned three master’s degrees and a doctorate before pursuing a literary career. Shortly thereafter, she became a signal voice of the South Asian immigrant experience in the United States and won the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/ Hemingway Award for her debut short-story collection, The Interpreter of Maladies (1999). Lahiri’s novel The Lowlands (2013) was a bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award.
In David Levine’s caricature of Lahiri, which first accompanied a review of The Namesake (2003), he portrayed her in a traditional Indian sari, seated on the floor with a computer.
Nacida en Londres, Inglaterra
De padres bengalíes, Jhumpa Lahiri se trasladó
de Londres a Rhode Island cuando tenía dos años. Ha dicho que de pequeña no se sentía realmente cómoda ni en Estados Unidos ni en la India: “En muchos momentos de mi vida deseé poder ser como cualquier otro americano [...] sentirme de verdad parte de eso, parte de su fibra. No podía. Simplemente no podía. Y todos mis escritos han surgido de ahí”. Lahiri obtuvo tres grados de maestría y un doctorado antes de iniciar su carrera literaria. Poco después se convirtió en voz señera de la experiencia migratoria surasiática en Estados Unidos y ganó los premios Pulitzer y PEN/Hemingway por su primera colección de cuentos, El intérprete del dolor (1999). Su novela La hondonada (2013) fue un éxito de ventas y finalista del Premio Nacional del Libro.
Esta caricatura de Lahiri realizada por David Levine acompañó una reseña de El buen nombre (2003) y la presenta con el tradicional sari indio, sentada en el piso con una computadora.
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Artist
David Levine, 20 Dec 1926 - 29 Dec 2009
Sitter
Jhumpa Lahiri, born 11 Jul 1967
Date
2003
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; copyright Eve and Matthew Levine
Medium
Ink over graphite on paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 35.7 × 27.5 cm (14 1/16 × 10 13/16")
Type
Drawing

Featured In

  • American Women Writers—and Readers
  • Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage in the Collections
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