I read this in college--I'm not sure if it was for a class or just because I was wanting to read Pulitzers more then too--and remember loving it. But then I am pretty sure I lost my copy or someone took it and never gave it back, and I re-bought it several times until I had three copies this weekend, haha! I gave two of them away at my two book club Christmas parties this week, and finished my own copy tonight. It was just as good as I remember. It's a collection of short stories by an Indian-American author and each one is about both of those countries and people navigating between them. Several are set fully in India and not involving any Americans (but I felt like those were my least favorite), but I loved the ones where Indians have moved to America and are adjusting to their new lives in America and the new culture here. I love how Lahiri really helped me feel like I was one of them and like I understood what it was like to move to America from India and to lose all my family and to have everything change so drastically. It says on the back of the book that "Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner," and that's exactly how I felt. My favorite story might have been "The Third and Final Continent" about a man who moves to America for the first time, and how he comes to know his wife after their brief arranged marriage, and also "Interpreter of Maladies," which I remembered from reading the last time. I really loved this book--it rekindled my love of short stories.
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