Jhumpa Lahiri

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri documented the lives and struggles of Indian immigrants like herself in such novels and short story collections as Interpreter of Maladies (1999), The Namesake (2003) and The Lowland (2013). Lahiri burst onto the literary scene at the dawn of the new millennium with Interpreter of Maladies, which became one of the few short story collections to win the Pulitzer. After winning the Pulitzer, she soon proved to be a skillful and prolific writer in several mediums, including novels like The Namesake, non-fiction essays on cooking for The New Yorker, and even academic material on Renaissance studies. Lahiri also served on the board of major literary organizations like the President's Committee on the Arts of Humanities, but her fiction remained her most potent showcase, where her stories of immigrant culture and assimilation into American society underscored her status as one of the modern literary world's most acclaimed figures.