You know, since the reviews have come out and people have reacted to it, I have realized that is in a sense what has happened. But as I was writing them, I didn't feel a part of any tradition. I think that would have been too overwhelming, in a sense.- Jhumpa Lahiri
Winning the Pulitzer is wonderful and it's an honor and I feel so humbled and so grateful, but I think that I will think of it very much as the final sort of final moment for this book and put it behind me along with the rest of the book, as I write more books.
When I sit down to write, I do not think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.
This story is based on a gentleman who indeed did... used to come to my parents' house in 1971 from Bangladesh. He was at the University of Rhode Island. And I was four, four years old, at the time, and so I actually do not have any memories of this gentleman.
The reactions haven't differed; the concerns have been different. When I read for a predominantly Indian audience, there are more questions that are based on issues of identity and representation.
Some Indians will come up and say that a story reminded them of something very specific to their experience. Which may or may not be the case for non-Indians.
Relationships do not preclude issues of morality.
On the screen I saw tanks rolling through dusty streets, and fallen buildings, and forests of unfamiliar trees into which East Pakistani refugees had fled, seeking safety over the Indian border.
It's easy to set a story anywhere if you get a good guidebook and get some basic street names, and some descriptions, but, for me, yes, I am indebted to my travels to India for several of the stories.
Interpreter of Maladies is the title of one of the stories in the book. And the phrase itself was something I thought of before I even wrote that story.
I have seen novels that have grown out of one story in a collection. But it hasn't occurred to me to take any of those stories and build on them. They seem very finished for me, so I do not feel like going back and dredging them up.
I have never had Internet access. Actually, I have looked at things on other people's computers as a bystander. A few times in my life I have opened email accounts, twice actually, but it's something I do not want in my life right now.
I have inherited a sense of that loss from my parents because it was so palpable all the time while I was growing up, the sense of what my parents had sacrificed in moving to the United States, and yet at the same time, building a life here and all that that entailed.
I would not send a first story anywhere. I would give myself time to write a number of stories.
I can't tell you exactly how I found it. It was just a process of writing a lot of stories and reading a lot of stories that I admired and just working and working until the sentences sounded right and I was satisfied with them.
