Jhumpa Lahiri loses out on US National Book Award

In a review of her latest novel, the New York Times noted: "Jhumpa Lahiri first made her name with quiet, meticulously observed stories about Indian immigrants trying to adjust to new lives in the United States, stories that had the hushed intimacy of chamber music."


"The premise of her new novel, 'The Lowland,' in contrast, is startlingly operatic," the influential US daily said calling it "certainly Ms. Lahiri's most ambitious undertaking yet", that "eventually opens out into a moving family story".

She is the author of three previous books. Her debut collection of stories, "Interpreter of Maladies", won the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Hemingway Award.