Jhumpa Lahiri won the 2000 Pulitzer prize for Fiction with her short story collection Interpreter of Maladies. The Namesake is her first novel and with it she has won critical acclaim for her ability to create characters that her readers care about.
The main character in The Namesake is Gogol Ganguli, the American-born son of Indian immigrants. His pet baby name, Gogol, (named after the Russian author) sticks with him throughout his childhood and adolescence and is a constant source of frustration for him. To him it signifies his difficulties in assimilating with both the American way of life and his family’s Indian culture.
The Namesake has also been lauded for its accurate portrayal of the challenges immigrate families face in a new country and the struggle to find personal identity within such a clash of cultures.
The Namesake is available as a book group set at Maribyrnong Library.
The opinions posted here are my own and not those of Maribyrnong City Council.
