“She had generated alternative versions of herself. She had insisted at brutal cost on these conversions. Layering her life, only to strip it bare. Only to be alone in the end. Her life had been paired down to its solitary components.”

British-American author

Jhumpa Lahiri is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays. She writes in English and, more recently, in Italian. Her work spans fiction and nonfiction, and she is especially associated with concise, carefully observed prose. Alongside her English-language writing, she has also published in Italian, broadening the language of her literary work.