# Interpreter of Maladies
*Interpreter of Maladies* is a debut short story collection by the American writer [Jhumpa Lahiri](https://www.edgepedia.org/jhumpa-lahiri), published by Houghton Mifflin in Boston in 1999 and winner of the 2000 [Pulitzer Prize for Fiction](https://www.edgepedia.org/pulitzer-prize-for-fiction)[1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri) • [2](https://search.worldcat.org/title/40331288). Its nine stories follow characters, mostly Bengali and Indian immigrants, moving between the [Indian subcontinent](https://www.edgepedia.org/indian-subcontinent) and the United States, and it also won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the New Yorker Prize for Best First Book[3](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Publication | Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1999; 198 pages, 22 cm[2](https://search.worldcat.org/title/40331288) |
| Contents | Nine stories exploring tension between tradition and modernity across the Bengali diaspora[3](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies) |
| Pulitzer Prize | 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded to the author for distinguished fiction by an American author, with a $5,000 prize[1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri) |
| Other awards | PEN/Hemingway Award; New Yorker Prize for Best First Book[3](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies) |
| First edition | A paperback (ISBN 0-395-92720-X) priced at $12.00; the hardcover (ISBN 0-618-10136-5, $23.00) appeared two months after the Pulitzer win[4](https://www.pprize.com/BookDetail.php/Interpreter-Maladies) |
| Anthology record | The title story was selected for both the O. Henry Award and The Best American Short Stories[1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri) |
| Recent edition | A Folio Society edition illustrated by Shreya Gupta, with Domenico Starnone's 2019 preface, announced in 2023[3](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies) |
## Publication and background
The book appeared in 1999 from Houghton Mifflin as a 198-page volume[2](https://search.worldcat.org/title/40331288). The title story had first been published in 1998 as a short story before joining the collection[5](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/interpreter-maladies-jhumpa-lahiri), and two stories in the book first appeared in *The New Yorker*[1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri).
**Lahiri's background.** Jhumpa Lahiri was born in 1967 in London, England, and raised in [Rhode Island](https://www.edgepedia.org/rhode-island); she holds degrees from [Barnard College](https://www.edgepedia.org/barnard-college) and [Boston University](https://www.edgepedia.org/boston-university), including a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies[1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri). Before the collection, her fiction had appeared in *The New Yorker*, *Agni*, *Epoch*, *The Louisville Review*, *Harvard Review*, and *Story Quarterly*; she received a Transatlantic Review award from the Henfield Foundation in 1993, a fiction prize from *The Louisville Review* in 1997, and was a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown from 1997 to 1998[1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri).
The book's first edition is a paperback, and it precedes the hardcover: it carries a full number line ("10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1"), a 1999 title page, an [Amy Tan](https://www.edgepedia.org/amy-tan) review blurb on the front cover, and a $12.00 back-cover price[4](https://www.pprize.com/BookDetail.php/Interpreter-Maladies). A hardcover with a new ISBN followed two months after the [Pulitzer Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/pulitzer-prize) was announced, its dust jacket advertising the Pulitzer and PEN/Hemingway wins and priced at $23.00[4](https://www.pprize.com/BookDetail.php/Interpreter-Maladies).
## The stories
The collection's nine stories include the following:
- **"A Temporary Matter"** concerns a young Indian-American couple estranged after their son's stillbirth who spend a week of neighborhood electrical blackouts playing a confession game, "telling each other something we've never told before," which devolves into "a hurtful game of guilt and humiliation"[6](https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm022/98050895.html) • [7](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/080699lahiri-book-review.html). The story was published in *The New Yorker*, and WorldCat summarizes it as being about mixed marriage[6](https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm022/98050895.html) • [2](https://search.worldcat.org/title/40331288).
- **"When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine"** shows an Indian American girl recognizing her cultural identity during a [Halloween](https://www.edgepedia.org/halloween) celebration while a war plays on television in the background; the Folio Society description reads the story as viewing Partition from a distanced child's perspective[8](https://www.harperacademic.com/book/9780358213260/interpreter-of-maladies/) • [3](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies).
- **"Mrs. Sen's"** concerns the adaptation of an immigrant to the United States; Mrs. Sen says of India, "Everything is there," while her story begins with the fact that she herself no longer is[2](https://search.worldcat.org/title/40331288) • [9](https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/11/reviews/990711.11craint.html).
- **"This Blessed House"** turns on a dispute over Christian knickknacks found in a new home, a 3-D postcard of St. Francis, a Nativity snow globe, and a paint-by-number picture of the three wise men, which escalates into a fight about religion, autonomy, and control; the wife, Tanima, known as Twinkle, collects the kitsch Christian figurines[7](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/080699lahiri-book-review.html) • [3](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies).
- **"Sexy"** depicts Miranda, who sleeps with a married man named Dev whom she met at Filene's department store[7](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/080699lahiri-book-review.html).
- **"A Real Durwan"** and **"The Treatment of Bibi Haldar"** are the two stories set in India[7](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/080699lahiri-book-review.html).
- **The title story** follows Mr. and Mrs. Das, their three children Ronny, Bobby, and Tina, and their Indian guide Mr. Kapasi on a day trip to tourist sites in India; the family's American upbringing creates a cultural dissonance that Mr. Kapasi perceives[5](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/interpreter-maladies-jhumpa-lahiri). Mr. Kapasi recognizes in the visiting couple's "bickering, the indifference, the protracted silences" the same signs of discord he sees in his own marriage; after the wife confesses adultery, he suspects he was "only a bit player in her life story"[7](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/080699lahiri-book-review.html). The publisher's description summarizes it as an interpreter guiding an American family through the India of their ancestors and hearing an astonishing confession[6](https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm022/98050895.html).
The title story's figure of the interpreter frames the book: the Pulitzer citation's accompanying commentary observes that, like her interpreter, Lahiri "translates between the strict traditions of her ancestors and the baffling New World"[1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri).
## Themes and style
Lahiri's characters largely shuttle between the United States and the Indian subcontinent, dating, vacationing, emigrating, and working across national and cultural boundaries; their stories gain force from the feeling of cultural transition and loss they convey[9](https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/11/reviews/990711.11craint.html). Michiko Kakutani, reviewing for *The New York Times*, wrote that many of the characters are Indian immigrants adjusting to a new life in the United States, and that their cultural displacement is "a kind of index of a more existential sense of dislocation"[7](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/080699lahiri-book-review.html). The Folio Society description identifies the book's organizing tension as that between tradition and modernity, old and new worlds[3](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies).
The prose style drew consistent notice. Kakutani called the writing "so eloquent and assured that the reader easily forgets that 'Interpreter of Maladies' is a young writer's first book"[7](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/080699lahiri-book-review.html).
## Reception
**Contemporary reviews.** Kakutani's August 6, 1999 review called the collection "a precocious debut" by "a writer of uncommon elegance and poise"[7](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/080699lahiri-book-review.html). She also offered criticism: reliance on coincidence in "Sexy," and "folk-tale contrivance" producing overly neat, moralistic endings in "A Real Durwan" and "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar"[7](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/080699lahiri-book-review.html). Caleb Crain's July 11, 1999 review in *The New York Times Book Review* appeared under the title "Subcontinental Drift"[9](https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/11/reviews/990711.11craint.html).
**Awards.** The 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction went to *Interpreter of Maladies* (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin), for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, carrying a $5,000 award[1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri). The collection also won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the New Yorker Prize for Best First Book[3](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies). The publisher's own description compared Lahiri's cultural insight to [Anita Desai](https://www.edgepedia.org/anita-desai) and her depth to [Mavis Gallant](https://www.edgepedia.org/mavis-gallant), calling her "an important and powerful new voice"[6](https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm022/98050895.html).
## By the numbers
- 198 pages in the first edition, 22 cm tall[2](https://search.worldcat.org/title/40331288).
- Nine stories[3](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies).
- $12.00 back-cover price on the 1999 paperback first edition; $23.00 on the post-Pulitzer hardcover[4](https://www.pprize.com/BookDetail.php/Interpreter-Maladies).
- $5,000 Pulitzer Prize award[1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri).
- 2000 prize year for a 1999 book[1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri).
## Scholarship and later career
A noted scholarly treatment is Noelle Brada-Williams of San José State University, "Reading Jhumpa Lahiri's *Interpreter of Maladies* as a Short Story Cycle," published in *MELUS* volume 29, issues 3–4 (September 2004, doi 10.2307/4141867), which treats the collection as a unified form rather than as isolated stories[10](https://academic.oup.com/melus/article/29/3-4/451/1080624). The Library of Congress cataloging record carries the subject heading "East Indian Americans—Fiction," placing the book within that literary category[6](https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm022/98050895.html).
The collection stands at the start of a career that includes the novels *The Namesake* and *[The Lowland](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-lowland)* and the story collection *[Unaccustomed Earth](https://www.edgepedia.org/unaccustomed-earth)*[8](https://www.harperacademic.com/book/9780358213260/interpreter-of-maladies/). Since 2015 Lahiri has written fiction, essays, and poetry in Italian: *In Altre Parole* (*In Other Words*), *Il Vestito dei libri* (*The Clothing of Books*), *Dove mi trovo* (self-translated as *Whereabouts*), *Il quaderno di Nerina*, and *Racconti romani* (*Roman Stories*); *Translating Myself and Others* was a PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award finalist[8](https://www.harperacademic.com/book/9780358213260/interpreter-of-maladies/). She received the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama in 2014 and was named Commendatore of the Italian Republic by President Sergio Mattarella in 2019[8](https://www.harperacademic.com/book/9780358213260/interpreter-of-maladies/).
A Folio Society edition, announced September 5, 2023, is illustrated by Shreya Gupta in bold colors and patterns and includes a 2019 preface by the Italian writer Domenico Starnone; the current [HarperCollins](https://www.edgepedia.org/harpercollins) academic edition also carries the Starnone foreword and describes the book as an international bestseller[3](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies) • [8](https://www.harperacademic.com/book/9780358213260/interpreter-of-maladies/).
## References
1. [Jhumpa Lahiri | The Pulitzer Prizes](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jhumpa-lahiri)
2. [Interpreter of maladies : stories | WorldCat.org](https://search.worldcat.org/title/40331288)
3. [Interpreter of Maladies, The Folio Society](https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/interpreter-of-maladies)
4. [Interpreter of Maladies, Pulitzer first-edition guide](https://www.pprize.com/BookDetail.php/Interpreter-Maladies)
5. [Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, EBSCO Research Starters](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/interpreter-maladies-jhumpa-lahiri)
6. [Publisher's description for Library of Congress control number 98050895](https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm022/98050895.html)
7. [Liking America, but Longing for India, Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times, August 6, 1999](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/080699lahiri-book-review.html)
8. [Interpreter of Maladies, HarperAcademic publisher page](https://www.harperacademic.com/book/9780358213260/interpreter-of-maladies/)
9. [Subcontinental Drift, Caleb Crain, The New York Times Book Review, July 11, 1999](https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/11/reviews/990711.11craint.html)
10. [Reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies as a Short Story Cycle, MELUS 29(3–4)](https://academic.oup.com/melus/article/29/3-4/451/1080624)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Creative written works and worlds › Prose fiction › Novellas, novelettes, and short stories › Short story collections › Short story collections by nationality and language*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license