Jhumpa Lahiri on Translating Metamorphosis

Photo: Celeste Sloman

“My mother’s death was a metamorphosis for her on the bodily level, but a metamorphosis for everyone she left behind.”

Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London and raised in Rhode Island. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and author of two previous books. Her debut collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award and The New Yorker Debut of the Year. Her novel The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. She edited The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.