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Quote by Jhumpa Lahiri

“She refused to think of it as an arranged marriage but knew in her heart that that was what it was. In Rome, she communicated with Navin by e-mail and spoke to him a few times on the phone, conversations heavy with the weight of things to come but lacking the foundation of any lived history between them.”

Quote by Jhumpa Lahiri

Work

Unaccustomed Earth

This book is a collection of short stories that delve into the complexities of life in the United States for immigrants and their descendants. The narratives explore themes such as cultural adaptation, the struggle for belonging, and the intricate relationships within immigrant families. more

Author

Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian-American author known for her insightful exploration of immigration and multiculturalism. Her works often focus on the inner world of second-generation immigrants, delving into themes of identity, belonging, and cultural conflict. Born on July 11, 1967, Lahiri graduated from Brown University and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University. more

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“I don't think this place was everything my mother hoped for that day when she asked God where she should go to give her son the world. Though she didn't ford a river or hike across mountains, she still did what so many pioneers before had done, traveled recklessly, curiously, into the unknown of finding something just a little bit better. And like them she suffered and persevered, perhaps in equal measure. Whenever I looked at her, a castaway on the island of my queen-sized bed, it was hard for me to look past the suffering. It was hard for me not to take inventory of all that she had lost -- her home country, her husband, her son. The losses just kept piling up. It was hard for me to see her there, hear her ragged breath, and think of how she had persevered, but she had. Just lying there in my bed was a testament to her perseverance, to the fact that she survived, even when she wasn't sure she wanted to. I used to believe that God never gives us more than we can handle, but then my brother died and my mother and I were left with so much more; it crushed us. It took me many years to realize that it's hard to live in this world. I don't mean the mechanics of living, because for most of us, our hearts will beat, our lungs will take in oxygen, without us doing anything at all to tell them to. For most of us, mechanically, physically, it's hard to die than it is to live. But still we try to die. We drive too fast down winding roads, we have sex with strangers without wearing protection, we drink, we use drugs. We try to squeeze a little more life out of our lives. It's natural to want to do that. But to be alive in the world, every day, as we are given more and more and more, as the nature of "what we can handle" changes and our methods for how we handle it change, too, that's something of a miracle.”