The stories in this amazing debut book, which travel from India to New Englandand back again, unerringly follow the emotional journeys of characters seeking love across national and generational divides. They speak to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner, and they are imbued with the sensory subtleties of Indian culture

Jhumpa Lahiri, like the interpreter in the title story, which has been nominated for both the O. Henry Award and The Best American Short Stories, bridges the gap between her ancestors' rigorous customs and the perplexing New World.

Houghton Mifflin publishes Jhumpa Lahiri's first book, Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of stories, in the spring of 1999. Lahiri was born in London, England, in 1967 and grew up in Rhode Island. She's visited India on multiple occasions, where both of her parents were born and reared, and where several of the stories in Interpreter of Maladies are set.

She is currently based in New York Cityand working on a novel.