The Namesake

by Jhumpa Lahiri

English language

Published Sept. 16, 2003

ISBN:: 978-0-395-92721-2

(12 reviews)

The Namesake (2003) is the debut novel by American author Jhumpa Lahiri. It was originally published in The New Yorker and was later expanded to a full-length novel. It explores many of the same emotional and cultural themes as Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection Interpreter of Maladies. The novel moves between events in Calcutta, Boston, and New York City, and examines the nuances involved with being caught between two conflicting cultures with distinct religious, social, and ideological differences.

2 editions

kab reviewed The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Namesake

2 stars

In place of exploring identity and belonging, or the transformation of tradition, or class privilege, or a human voice, The Namesake is bogged with unremitting descriptions of everything in a room. Across generations the characterisation is flat and, like in Amy Tan's novels, the American generation is the dullest, and here, aspirationally white-adjacent.

I would have preferred reading a novel entirely about Moushumi, including her later ditching the teenager-grooming Dimitri.