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Interpreter of Maladies

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Interpreter of Maladies

Written by: Jhumpa Lahiri
Narrated by: Matilda Novak
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Buy Now for ₹443.00

Buy Now for ₹443.00

About this listen

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 Anthologies Anthologies & Short Stories Contemporary Fantasy Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Paranormal & Urban Short Stories Indian Literature

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)
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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.

stories on human behavior and thinking

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The audio is not properly organised in chapters according to the book. Chapters in audio cut accept stories and same story is continued in the next chapter. Very hard to move around from one chapter to another. No problem in the actual narration or the story. Both are top notch

Good story, flaw in the audible organisation of audio

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I will surely revisit this again. I would love for them to mark the stories in content section, even though I have marked them myself using clips

Amazing heartfelt stories and great narration to go with it

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The storytelling is compelling and fluid. This is my first Jhumpa Lahiri book and it was splendid!

Such an adept chronicler of ordinary stories!

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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.

Beautiful book, mediocre narration, pathetic formatting

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