A review by nishades
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

2.0

Maybe my issue is because I read Unaccustomed Earth first, but after a while and especially in this book, it feels like Lahiri is telling the same story over and over again. We get it - Bengalis coming to America in the 70s, their children dealing with issues that can only be described as #firstworldproblems, and the occasional flashback to the good old motherland where the story is as exotic and the characters are as simple and depth-less as can be. Throw in some white people for good measure for juxtapose the American identity with Indian values, am I right?

Jhumpa Lahiri has an excellent prose, and there was one passage in this book that made me go "wow" but sometimes I wonder why she is hailed as the great literary hope of the South Asian diaspora.