Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland set for launch this September
Jhumpa Lahiri is back with the next fictional work. Her new novel ‘The Lowland’ is set for launch in September and is getting pre-orders on popular online book stores such as Flipkart.com and Homeshop18.com, etc.
The Lowland sets the tragic tone with lines such as: “Two brothers bound by tragedy. A fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past. A country torn by revolution. A love that lasts long past death.”
Claimed to be an emotionally riveting novel, it is set in India and America, thereby expanding the scope and range on to the Indian diaspora.
Snapshot of story as it goes on in the brief posted on the online book stores: “Born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. It is the 1960s, and Udayancharismatic and impulsivefinds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement: he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes. Subhash, the dutiful son, does not share his brothers political passion; he leaves home to pursue a life of scientific research in a quiet, coastal corner of America. But when Subhash learns what happened to his brother in the lowland outside their family’s home, he returns to India, hoping to pick up the pieces of a shattered family, and to heal the wounds Udayan left behind including those seared in the heart of his brothers wife.”
The publisher claims that it is a suspenseful, sweeping, piercingly intimate novel from the writer who is traditionally known for putting in more focus on featuring women issues like miscarriage, heartbreak and sadism in her stories. ‘The Lowland’ is further claimed to be a masterly novel of fate and will, exile and return. Shifting among the points of view of a wide range of richly drawn characters, it is, as claims the publisher note, at once a page-turner and a work of great beauty and complex emotion. Not only this, it is said to be an engrossing family saga with very high stakes and a story steeped in history that seamlessly spans generations and geographies. “A tour de force and an instant classic, this is Jhumpa Lahiri at the height of her considerable powers,” feigns the publisher note. However, only time will tell whether this is a work of great power or not.
Jhumpa is already in the known literary circles having authored three works of fiction: Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake and, most recently, Unaccustomed Earth. The lady author is a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, a PEN/Hemingway Award, the Frank OConnor International Short Story Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2012.
Exaggerated comments about an author publicized more for non intellectual reasons and her art lacks the spark of a writer must possess. He publicity hinges on the equation and clout she manages well. As an artist she is too ordinary and commonplace. Her new novel though nominated is another example of awards being politicized and erodes my faith in the literary judgments of those who prevail with their tails up.
Exaggerated comments about an author publicized more for non intellectual reasons and her art lacks the spark a writer must possess. Her publicity hinges on the equation and clout she manages well. As an artist she is too ordinary and commonplace. Her new novel though nominated is another example of awards being politicized and erodes my faith in the literary judgments of those who prevail with their tails up.