A review of “Interpreter of Maladies” in 100 words by Catherine Stover
The story “The Third and Final Continent” is about a man who moved from India to the United States. The story focuses on his early days in this country thirty years ago. However, in the final pages of the story, the author Jhumpa Lahiri stuns us by suddenly shifting the story forward to the present day. The man looks back in time and tells us how his relocation makes him feel now in an elegy that’s elegant, poetic, and moving. A discussion of Lahiri’s techniques can be found here in a podcast hosted by the editor of the New Yorker.
Work cited:
Lahiri, Jhumpa. “The Third and Final Continent.” Interpreter of Maladies. Second Mariner Books edition, 2019, p. 193.