Harvard Club of the Palm Beaches

The Harvard Club of the Palm Beaches

will be discussing (via Zoom)
 

“The Namesake”
by Jhumpa Lahiri
 

 Monday, December 6, 2021

6:00 PM
 

Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri’s 2003 “The Namesake” takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. It deals with the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation and the tangled ties between generations.
 

After their arranged marriage, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle in Cambridge MA. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts with far less difficulty than his wife who resists all things American and pines for her family. Their son is named Gogol for a Russian writer in memory of a catastrophe that occurred years before. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we come to define ourselves.

Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London and brought up in South Kingstown, RI by a Bengali mother who wanted to raise her children to be Indian. She received her BA in English Literature from Barnard College and multiple degrees from Boston University. She lives in Brooklyn NY with her husband, a journalist, and two children. Lahiri taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the New Yorker’s Best Debut of the Year, and the PEN/Hemingway Award for her fiction debut “Interpreter of Maladies.”

Because we wish to keep the discussion intimate, and to allow all members to share their thoughts, we will have a 25-person RSVP maximum. If you cannot register on the website, please email the Club Administrator at harvardclub.pb@gmail.com to be placed on the waitlist. While reading, please consider a question or observation that you would like the group to discuss and bring it to the meeting! 
 

Genre: Fiction writing
Formats: Paperback, kindle, audiobook
Length: Paperback (318 pages)

 Cost: FREE (and a plus-one is allowed)