"Interpreter of maladies", a collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri. Jhumpa won 'Pulitzer prize for fiction' for this book.
The stories are typical every day life stories mostly involving expatriate Indians. These stories look for meanings in the lives of common people. Events in these stories happen every day, but only a good writer can see through the obvious and present the same event in a different perspective. Jhumpa has done this job very well.
This book contains 9 stories. All of them are good. 'Sexy' and 'A real durwan' are very good stories, but the ones I liked most were 'Interpretor of Maladies' and 'Mrs. Sen's'. Jhumpa demonstrates keen observation, adds right amount of emotions and yet presents them in an impersonal manner.
The message in these stories is very subtle. A casual reader may easily overlook it and hence may not like the book.
For the first time, I liked an award winning book.
BTW: Very recently Jhumpa lost the booker prize 2013 for 'The lowlands'. Hard luck.
Do not miss this one. A must read.
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