Biographical note:

JHUMPA LAHIRI is the author of Interpreter of Maladies, awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Hemingway Award; The Namesake; and Unaccustomed Earth, a #1 New York Times bestseller and a New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2012. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and 2 children.

Country of final manufacture:

US

Excerpt from book:

Normally she stayed on the balcony, reading, or kept to an adjacent room as her brother and Udayan studied and smoked and drank cups of tea. Manash had befriended him at Calcutta University, where they were both graduate students in the physics department. Much of the time their books on the behaviors of liquids and gases would sit ignored as they talked about the repercussions of Naxalbari, and commented on the day’s events.

The discussions strayed to the insurgencies in Indochina and in Latin American countries. In the case of Cuba it wasn’t even a mass movement, Udayan pointed out. Just a small group, attacking the right targets.

All over the world students were gaining momentum, standing up to exploitative systems. It was another example of Newton’s second law of motion, he joked. Force equals mass times acceleration.

Manash was skeptical. What could they, urban students, claim to know about peasant life?

Nothing, Udayan said. We need to learn from them.

Through an open doorway she saw him. Tall but slight of build, twenty-three but looking a bit older. His clothing hung on him loosely. He wore kurtas but also European-style shirts, irreverently, the top portion unbuttoned, the bottom untucked, the sleeves rolled back past the elbow.

He sat in the room where they listened to the radio. On the bed that served as a sofa where, at night, Gauri slept. His arms were lean, his fingers too long for the small porcelain cups of tea her family served him, which he drained in just a few gulps. His hair was wavy, the brows thick, the eyes languid and dark.

His hands seemed an extension of his voice, always in motion, embellishing the things he said. Even as he argued he smiled easily. His upper teeth overlapped slightly, as if there were one too many of them. From the beginning, the attraction was there.

He never said anything to Gauri if she happened to brush by. Never glancing, never acknowledging that she was Manash’s younger sister, until the day the houseboy was out on an errand, and Manash asked Gauri if she minded making them some tea.

She could not find a tray to put the teacups on. She carried them in, nudging open the door to the room with her shoulder.
Looking up at her an instant longer than he needed to, Udayan took his cup from her hands.

The groove between his mouth and nose was deep. Clean-shaven. Still looking at her, he posed his first question.

Where do you study? he asked.

*
Because she went to Presidency, and Calcutta University was just next door, she searched for him on the quadrangle, and among the bookstalls, at the tables of the Coffee House if she went there with a group of friends. Something told her he did not go to his classes as regularly as she did. She began to watch for him from the generous balcony that wrapped around the two sides of her grandparents’ flat, overlooking the intersection where Cornwallis Street began. It became something for her to do.

Then one day she spotted him, amazed that she knew which of the hundreds of dark heads was his. He was standing on the opposite corner, buying a packet of cigarettes. Then he was crossing the street, a cotton book bag over his shoulder, glancing both ways, walking toward their flat.

She crouched below the filigree, under the clothes drying on the line, worr“Formidable . . . Lahiri’s precise writing and clarity of expression cast [a] spell. She is an expert in writing about dislocation—the feeling of being simultaneously two places at once and not necessarily belonging to either . . . The Lowland examines at the nature of sacrifice and love, the price of personal freedom, and what really constitutes the greater good.” —Yvonne Zipp, Christian Science Monitor

“Exquisite, graceful . . . The Lowland has complicated the ancient story of sibling rivalry by infusing it with real affection, capturing the way two brothers need and rely on each other . . . Lahiri shifts nimbly between moments of mischief and happiness to scenes of dread and violence. Her prose, as always, is a miracle of delicate strength, like those threads of spider silk that, wound together, are somehow stronger than steel . . . Given the trauma Subhash and Gauri have experienced, their whispered lives are perfectly understandable, and Lahiri renders them in clear, restrained prose . . . Mesmerizing, devastating.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post Book World

“Compelling . . . Tracking lives across four generations and two continents with crisp confidence, Lahiri has a marvelous eye for the pivotal detail . . . A novel about idealism, betrayal and the bonds of brotherhood. Four stars” —Helen Rogan, People (a People Pick)
 
“Thrilling . . . elegant . . . told in a vigorous, straightforward prose . . . The reader’s heart remains firmly drawn toward Subhash, a good man too often trapped by circumstance . . . The lowland in [the family’s] neighborhood serves as telling metaphor for the dark places that haunt our lives. In its quiet intensity, it reminds us of the triumphant fiction of Alice Munro and William Trevor.” —Dan Cryer, Newsday
 
“Potent, memorable, poignant . . . Lahiri has reached literary high ground . . . A story as rich as the titular terrain of the Calcutta neighborhood she profiles, where an early tragedy irrevocably fractures [a] family . . . The Lowland may sweep across generations and continents, through historical upheaval and contemporary angst, but its tone, its language, is subtle, whisper-like and confessional. It is at its most illuminating—at its peak—in its intimacy.” —Olivia Barker, USA Today
 
“A delicately harrowing family saga spanning more than 60 years. Its plot pivots on secrets and lies, and it is as much about parenting as politics . . . Lahiri has a devastatingly keen ear for the tensions and misunderstandings endemic in our closest relationships . . . Affecting.” —Hephzibah Anderson, Bloomberg News
 
“The Jhumpa Lahiri story keeps adding intriguing chapters . . . [In The Lowland], her evocation of New England and Calcutta is even more evocative and elegant than in her previous books. Her tone is dispassionate but warm, making the narrative of the turbulent lives of the main characters seem more like a tone poem than a symphony. When you can write prose like that it almost doesn’t matter what the subject matter is, but that Zen-like ability to observe without commenting is even more effective in the passages of life in India amid poverty and repression . . . [We are] fortunate: We have Lahiri to restore mystery, maximize surprise.” —Ed Siegel, The Artery
 
“Magnificent . . . Lahiri skillfully roots the story in people . . . There is a noticeable shift in the magnitude and ambition of [this] novel, [but] this broad change in location does not affect the heart of Lahiri’s talent: her ability to create dynamic characters with both small gestures and broad strokes . . . Lahiri’s careful prose and focus on character development assures that h