The Namesake

By Jhumpa Lahiri

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Jhumpa Lahiri's 2003 debut novel follows the Gangulis, Bengali immigrants who settle in Massachusetts, and their American-born son, named Gogol after the Russian writer his father loves. Ashoke and Ashima try to hold on to the customs of Calcutta while their children grow up American. Gogol spends years resenting his unusual name, and the novel traces his search for identity through school, love affairs and loss, from the late 1960s to the start of the twenty-first century.

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• Barack Obama: “I think Lahiri's books, I think Díaz's books, do speak to a very particular contemporary immigration experience. But also this combination of — that I think is universal — longing for this better place, but also feeling displaced and looking backwards at the same time. I think in that sense, their novels are directly connected to a lot of American literature.”