Interpreting a Culinary Montage: Food in Jhumpa Lahiri’s <i>Interpreter of Maladies<i>

Authors

  • Shweta Garg, Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, India
  • Rajyashree Khushu Lahiri, Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v6i1.237

Abstract

Jhumpa Lahiri, a Bengali American writer who rose to fame on being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her first work of fiction, is well known for her generous use of culinary images in her fiction. She writes about Bengali Americans and the daily challenges they face in their lives. This paper intends to examine the relevance of food consumption and its significance at the personal level as well as the broader political level in Lahiri’s The Interpreter of Maladies (1999). At the textual level, the paper shows that food acts as an aid to compensate for the understated narrative style of the author. Further, this paper underpins the fact that food not only acts as an identity marker but also negotiates personal, racial, sexual and social identities of the immigrant subjects.

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Author Biographies

Shweta Garg, Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, India

Shweta Garg is an Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Mandi. She is keenly interested in food and cultural studies and is trying to establish herself as a creative writer.

Rajyashree Khushu Lahiri, Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, India

Dr. Rajyashree Khushu-Lahiri is an Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Ropar. A former Fulbrighter who has more than twenty years of teaching experience, she has several publications in a wide range of areas.

 

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Published

2012-06-15

How to Cite

Garg, Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, India, S., & Lahiri, Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, India, R. K. (2012). Interpreting a Culinary Montage: Food in Jhumpa Lahiri’s &lt;i&gt;Interpreter of Maladies&lt;i&gt;. Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature, 6(1), 73–83. https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v6i1.237

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