A Diasporic Dilemma: Cultural Variance in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies

Abstract

Born in London, Lahiri moved to Rhode Island as a young child with her Bengali parents. Although they have lived in the United States for more than thirty years, Lahiri observes that her parents retain a sense of emotional exile and she herself grew up with conflicting expectations. Her abilities to convey the oldest cultural conflicts in the most immediate fashion and to achieve the voices of many different characters are among the unique qualities that have captured the attention of a wide audience. The fact that Jhumpa Lahiri is the child of Indian immigrants and that she also crosses borders when she migrates from England - where she was born - to become an American citizen, makes her both a migrant and diasporic writer. In her work, she reflects on the Indian diaspora and creates a narrative that reveals the inconsistency of the concept of identity and cultural difference in the space of diaspora.