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  • Interpreter of Maladies

  • Written by: Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Narrated by: Matilda Novak
  • Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (65 ratings)

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Interpreter of Maladies

Written by: Jhumpa Lahiri
Narrated by: Matilda Novak
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Publisher's Summary

Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2000

With accomplished precision and gentle eloquence, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the crosscurrents set in motion when immigrants, expatriates, and their children arrive, quite literally, at a cultural divide. The nine stories in this stunning debut collection unerringly chart the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations.

A blackout forces a young Indian American couple to make confessions that unravel their tattered domestic peace. An Indian-American girl recognizes her cultural identity during a Halloween celebration while the Pakastani civil war rages on television in the background. A latchkey kid with a single working mother finds affinity with a woman from Calcutta. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession.

Imbued with the sensual details of Indian culture, these stories speak with passion and wisdom to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner. Like the interpreter of the title story, Lahiri translates between the strict traditions of her ancestors and a baffling new world.

©2000 Jhumpa Lahiri (P)2000 HighBridge Company

Critic Reviews

"Moving and authoritative pictures of culture shock and displaced identity." (Kirkus Reviews)
"The crystalline writing in the nine stories of this Pulitzer Prize-winning debut collection dazzles. These sensitive explorations of the lives of Indian immigrants and expatriates touch on universal themes, making them at once specific and broad in their appeal. Narrator Matilda Novak's light voice is fine for stories written by a young woman, and the hint of melody in her reading is typical of Indian voices." (AudioFile)

What listeners say about Interpreter of Maladies

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

absolutely amazing

Re-read/ heard after ages and Jhumpa Lahiri still remains one of my favourite authors. Few capture scenes, culture, emotions, melancholy and ethinogy descriptions as amazing and gracefully as her!

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good

Helps you understand the way Indians adjust and adapt to new culture and systems to improve their lives.Also gives insight into how a foreign born Indian adapts and thinks of both cultures.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful book, mediocre narration, pathetic formatting

It’s a collection of short stories, but each story is not a separate chapter! Therefore it’s annoyingly difficult to go back and listen to a specific story without scrolling back and forth. On top of that there are absolutely meaningless guitar interludes that plays in between a story, completely ruining the flow! The vocal performance is mostly okay, nothing to praise. But the speaker absolutely fails to even attempt a proper pronunciation of Indian names. If one can even forgive that for character names, the narrator pronounces “Tagore” as ta-go-ray! I mean come on, he’s a Nobel laureate! This is disrespectful to say the least!

It’s a testament to how beautiful the stories are that I still wanted to listen more each time I finished a story. Beautiful prose, real characters with very relatable emotions.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Beautiful narratives, underwhelming production

Jhumpa Lahiri captures the stories of Indian diaspora elegantly. The stories are set in a timeline before so that adds a little bit of enchantment. The audible production was poor, with a non Indian narrator, music randomly playing in the middle of the book and the stories not organised into the chapters properly.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Narration is disappointing

Myself being an Indian and moreover a Bengali, the mispronunciation of Bengali words disappointed me very much. I wish the narrator was explained the proper pronunciation of the words as ‘Bechara’ in the story A Real Durwan, as well as the Indian names of the characters and places. It somehow mars the exquisiteness of the stories. Also the music comes in at odd places, in midst of a story, which is very irritating.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Poor Editing

Audio is not arranged according to the chapters in the book. It is divided abruptly in between.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful, and at times, touching.

The stories give us an idea about the lives of expatriate Indians. The stories located in Kolkata reminded me of R. K. Narayan.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Story is beautiful!!!!

story is amazing. if you haven't read just go for it. narrative is a bit fast. you need to slow it down a bit to soak the story in

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

not a great narration

the narration is not broken down by the stories. it is so difficult to get out of one narration and shift to the next mentally....

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

stories on human behavior and thinking

this was my second book. the first book lowland was class apart and this book is pale in comparison of that. her Narrative of the character is simply impressive. my next book would be the Namesake.

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