This special seminar with author Jhumpa Lahiri is open to a limited number of Brown University undergraduate students only.

Confirmed participants will also be guaranteed a seat for the public lecture with Jhumpa Lahiri Monday, October 6 at 5:30 pm. Participants should plan to attend this event as well.

Registration is now full.

For questions or to request special services, accommodations, or assistance, please contact humanities-institute@brown.edu or (401) 863-6070.

About the Speaker

Jhumpa Lahiri is an award-winning and best-selling multi-genre writer in English and Italian. Her debut story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (Houghton Mifflin, 1999), won the Pulitzer Prize. Her first novel, The Namesake (Houghton Mifflin, 2003) was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was adapted into a major film by director Mira Nair. Her other work includes the story collection Unaccustomed Earth (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), which won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award; the novel The Lowland (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), which won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award; the novel Whereabouts (Alfred A. Knopf, 2021); and the nonfiction book Translating Myself and Others (Princeton University Press, 2022).

She is the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including the National Humanities Medal, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the O. Henry Prize, the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. In 2024, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is currently the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Barnard College, Columbia University. Previously she directed Princeton University’s Program in Creative Writing. She is a graduate of Barnard College and has a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies from Boston University.

This event is a part of the Greg and Julie Flynn Cogut Institute Speaker Series, which brings high-profile speakers in the humanities to the Brown University campus. Each visit includes a public lecture and a separate seminar-style meeting with undergraduate students. Nominate a future speaker.

Join us for a reading by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, followed by a conversation between the author and Brown University professor Karan Mahajan.

Registration is now full.

For questions or to request special services, accommodations, or assistance, please contact humanities-institute@brown.edu or (401) 863-6070.

About the Speakers

Jhumpa Lahiri is an award-winning and best-selling multi-genre writer in English and Italian. Her debut story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (Houghton Mifflin, 1999), won the Pulitzer Prize. Her first novel, The Namesake (Houghton Mifflin, 2003), was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was adapted into a major film by director Mira Nair. Her other work includes the story collection Unaccustomed Earth (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), which won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award; the novel The Lowland (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), which won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award; the novel Whereabouts (Alfred A. Knopf, 2021); and the nonfiction book Translating Myself and Others (Princeton University Press, 2022).

She is the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including the National Humanities Medal, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the O. Henry Prize, the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. In 2024, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is currently the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Barnard College, Columbia University. Previously she directed Princeton University’s Program in Creative Writing. She is a graduate of Barnard College and has a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies from Boston University.

Karan Mahajan is Associate Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University. He is the author of Family Planning (Harper Perennial, 2008), a finalist for the International Dylan Thomas Prize, and The Association of Small Bombs (Penguin, 2016), which was shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award, won the 2017 NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, and was named one of the New York Times Book Review’s “10 Best Books of 2016.” In 2017, he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. His reporting and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New Republic, The New Yorker Online, and other venues. From 2018 to 2019, he was a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.

Undergraduate Seminar

Brown University undergraduate students are also invited to a special seminar with Jhumpa Lahiri Monday, October 6 at 3 pm.

This event is a part of the Greg and Julie Flynn Cogut Institute Speaker Series, which brings high-profile speakers in the humanities to the Brown University campus. Each visit includes a public lecture and a separate seminar-style meeting with undergraduate students.