Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri (; born on July 11, 1967) is an
Indian Bengali American author. Lahiri's debut short story collection,
Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the 2000
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her
first novel,
The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular
film of the same name. She was born Nilanjana Sudeshna but goes by her nickname (or in Bengali, her "Daak naam") Jhumpa. Lahiri is a member of the
President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by U.S. President
Barack Obama. Her book
The Lowland, published in 2013, was a nominee for the
Man Booker Prize and the
National Book Award for Fiction. Lahiri is currently a professor of creative writing at
Princeton University.