The Lowland
www.galaxyimrj.com
Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal
ISSN: 2278-9529
Jhumpa Lahiri 's The Lowland: A Family Saga with a Political Perspective
Sugata Samanta
West Bengal, India
Abstract :
Jhumpa Lahiri 's The Lowland, partly set in Calcutta of the 1960 's and 70 's and partly in
Rhode Island of America, tells the story of four generations of Mitra family with a sweeping, addictive plot. The initial development of the story centers around the Naxalite insurgency in
West Bengal in late 1960 's and 70 's which had taken the country by surprise. In this article I have tried to find out, by means of textual analysis, how far the novelist has succeeded in representing the Naxalite movement in her novel vibrantly and aesthetically.
Keywords : Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland, Naxalite movement
"The worlds of the familiar, the exotic, the best of human nature and the most selfish inhabit Jhumpa Lahiri 's new novel". That is how Corinna Lothar summarizes the essence of The
Lowland in The Washington Times (Lothar). From the very beginning of her career, right from the publication of The Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri is often categorized as an immigrant writer though she herself rejected the idea of immigrant fiction. "I don 't know what to make of the term," she told The New York Times, "Given the history of the United States, all
American fiction could be classified as immigrant fiction"
Jhumpa Lahiri may not be eager to promote herself as the exquisite image of an immigrant writer, unmistakably in The Lowland, Calcutta of the 70 's with its Naxalite movement and the Rhode Island of America have been fused inseparably. Calcutta(or Kolkata), as she reveals, is at the same time absent and vibrantly present in her life. "The impact that the absence of a place can have on a person is an intrinsic part of my existence. I do not know a world without it", said the writer in Jaipur Literature Festival, 2014 (India Today). Thus, there is not a
single
Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal
ISSN: 2278-9529
Jhumpa Lahiri 's The Lowland: A Family Saga with a Political Perspective
Sugata Samanta
West Bengal, India
Abstract :
Jhumpa Lahiri 's The Lowland, partly set in Calcutta of the 1960 's and 70 's and partly in
Rhode Island of America, tells the story of four generations of Mitra family with a sweeping, addictive plot. The initial development of the story centers around the Naxalite insurgency in
West Bengal in late 1960 's and 70 's which had taken the country by surprise. In this article I have tried to find out, by means of textual analysis, how far the novelist has succeeded in representing the Naxalite movement in her novel vibrantly and aesthetically.
Keywords : Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland, Naxalite movement
"The worlds of the familiar, the exotic, the best of human nature and the most selfish inhabit Jhumpa Lahiri 's new novel". That is how Corinna Lothar summarizes the essence of The
Lowland in The Washington Times (Lothar). From the very beginning of her career, right from the publication of The Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri is often categorized as an immigrant writer though she herself rejected the idea of immigrant fiction. "I don 't know what to make of the term," she told The New York Times, "Given the history of the United States, all
American fiction could be classified as immigrant fiction"
Jhumpa Lahiri may not be eager to promote herself as the exquisite image of an immigrant writer, unmistakably in The Lowland, Calcutta of the 70 's with its Naxalite movement and the Rhode Island of America have been fused inseparably. Calcutta(or Kolkata), as she reveals, is at the same time absent and vibrantly present in her life. "The impact that the absence of a place can have on a person is an intrinsic part of my existence. I do not know a world without it", said the writer in Jaipur Literature Festival, 2014 (India Today). Thus, there is not a
single
Cited: Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Lowland. Random House India, 2013. Print (All references from the text have been taken from the same edition) Mukhopadhyay, Ashok Kumar. Aatta-Natar Surjya. Kolkata: Dey 's Publishing, 2013. Print Lothar, Corinna "Jhumpa Lahiri: By the Book". The New York Times, 5 Sept. 2013. Web. 1 Sept. 2014 "Jaipur Literature Festival: Jhumpa Lahiri was the crowd puller for Day 2" Public Radio, 23 Sept. 2013.Web. 1 Sept.2014 Leyshon, Cressida."Unknown Territory: An Interview with Jhumpa Lahiri"