Jhumpa Lahiri is a novelist and storywriter known for her impactful prose that vibrantly captures the American immigrant experience. She was born in London, England, but moved to Rhode Island when she was young. Lahiri’s parents immigrated from Calcutta and pridefully stressed the preservation of her relationship with her East Indian heritage. She wrote for pleasure in her pre-college years, however in her attendance to Barnard University her passion for writing strengthened. She graduated in 1989 with a B.A. in English and continued to receive three masters degrees in creative writing, English, and comparative literature and the arts. Lahiri continued her education at Boston University, obtaining a doctorate in Renaissance studies. 
During her time in graduate school, Lahiri began to publish short stories in the New Yorker and Harvard Review, many of which went on to be included in her story collection, Interpreter of Maladies. Shortly after its publication in 1999, Interpreter of Maladies became a highly acclaimed piece of contemporary literature, winning the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2000 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction. Lahiri’s storytelling often captures conflicts of identity within a larger framework of family dynamics and immigration. Lahiri published her first longform novel, The Namesake (2003) depicting a Bengali family, The Gangulies, and their son Gogol. After this, Lahiri wrote Unaccustomed Earth (2008) followed by The Lowland (2013). Lahiri’s novel The Lowland was highly regarded as it was nominated for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award. In 2015, Lahiri was presented the 2014 National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama. Later that year, Lahiri published a novel written in Italian, In altre parole (In Other Words), focusing on cultural linguistic immersion. Most recently, Lahiri wrote Dove mi trovo or Whereabouts, a novel originally composed in Italian and translated into English by Lahiri herself. Jhumpa Lahiri continues to be a prominent and influential author in the contemporary fiction genre.