“I speak English. I grew up speaking Bengali. This is the normal, the known, the obvious composition of who I am. Then there's Italian, this strange, other component of me that I've just created. It was a creative process just to learn the language, never mind to start expressing myself in it.”

Jhumpa Lahiri is an American novelist and short story writer of Bengali descent. She gained prominence for her nuanced exploration of immigrant experiences, particularly through works like *Interpreter of Maladies* and *The Namesake*. Her writing often examines cultural displacement and the complexities of identity.