Jhumpa Lahiri

Brothers Subhash and Udayan Mitra pursue vastly different lives--Udayan in rebellion-torn Calcutta, Subhash in a quiet corner of America--until a shattering tragedy compels Subhash to return to India, where he endeavors to heal family wounds.

In the arc of one year, an unnamed narrator in an unnamed city, in the middle of her life's journey, realizes that she s lost her way. The city she calls home acts as a companion and interlocutor: traversing the streets around her house, and in parks, piazzas, museums, stores, and coffee bars, she feels less alone. We follow her to the pool she frequents, and to the train station that leads to her mother, who is mired in her own solitude after her...

Rome--metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multi-faceted and metaphysical--is the protagonist, not the setting, of these nine the first short story collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning master of the form since her number one New York Times best seller Unaccustomed Earth, and a major literary event. In "The Boundary," one family vacations in the Roman countryside, though we see their lives through the eyes of the caretaker's...

Thoughtful and affirming, this collection of essays about the joys and struggles of being alone illuminates an experience that is rarely openly discussed.