Read Book Review

Jhumpa Lahiri is out with her latest novel, The Lowland which talks about the lives of two brothers who love each other deeply but both take up different paths in their lives and face the unprecedented fate. 

Man Booker's Nomination

Man Booker Prize shortlist was announced recently and Jhumpa Lahiri, of The Namesake fame and a Pulitzer Prize winning author, has made her cut in the shortlist with her latest work The Lowland. Man Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious UK awards and Lahiri's novel is one amongst the 6 shortlisted titles. The results of the Award will be declared in the mid of next month.

The Story Behind The Novel

The Lowland is a story of two brothers living in Calcutta, India (now known as Kolkata) during the 1960's, one of the them joins Naxalites and faces a tragic climax while the other decides to move to U.S.A to pursue his further studies. Jhumpa Lahiri has drawn this story from a real life incident that she heard of in her childhood during her frequent visits to Kolkata. The incident took place near to her grand parents home where she visited often, two brothers who were followers of the Naxalite movement were killed by paramilitary in the front of their parents and other family members. Though she was not an eyewitness to this incident it left a deep impact on her mind.

However, she has taken the literary liberty of imagination in the novel and twists the incident to well suit her needs in bringing out the dilemma and tension between two brothers who love each other deeply and yet prefers to part ways, that too in extremism. In her one of her interviews Lahiri mentions that “I wanted to understand what had happened, and why, and that was what sparked the story. From the narrative standpoint I thought it would be interesting to have only one brother become involved politically, and I began to distinguish them as individuals.”

Her works are rooted in and guided by her own and her parents ' experiences. She comments that, 

“I had close family members who were very politically active,” Lahiri explains. “Most of my family are CPI(M) [Communist Party of India (Marxist)] – the Naxalite party was an extreme splinter off of that. There would be party meetings in my grandparents’ house in Calcutta. I would witness that life in that city, and people who believed as they did. It felt both outside of me and within me, somehow.”

The Lowland is thus a riveting novel that not only hovers around the lives of two brothers but that of life in two continents and during the times of political turmoil, contrast and conflicts between ideologies and much more. These theme explored in the novel elevates its value in the world of literature. 

This Man Booker nominated novel is now up for sales online at Infibeam.com, one of  the best online shopping site especially for books. 

http://www.infibeam.com/Books/lowland-jhumpa-lahiri/9788184003864.html

About Author:

Jhumpa Lahiri is born in London and based in New York, 46-year-old Lahiri is the daughter of Indian immigrants from West Bengal. She is also a member of US President Barack Obama's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her debut short story collection 'Interpreter of Maladies' (1999) and her first novel 'The Namesake' (2003) was adapted into a popular film of the same name by filmmaker Mira Nair.