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The History of Literature

168 Jhumpa Lahiri ("The Third and Final Continent")

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

Arts, History, Books

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2018

⏱️ 93 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What was it like to relocate from India to London to America in the early 1970s? And how can a daughter hope to recapture the experience of her father and convey it in fiction? In today's episode of the History of Literature, Jacke and Mike look at a contemporary classic story, Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Third and Final Continent." Along the way, they discuss the tropes of immigrant fiction, the pros and cons of epiphany stories, and whether a story is a "city" or "an old friend." (Yes, that's another one of Mike's special theories.) JHUMPA LAHIRI was born in 1967 in London, England, the daughter of Bengali Indian emigrants. She moved to the United States when she was two years old and grew up in Rhode Island. A graduate of Boston University, she began writing and publishing her stories of first-generation Indian-American immigrants in the 1990s. Her first book, Interpreter of Maladies, was a huge critical and commercial success, selling over 15 million copies and earning Lahiri the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. NOTE: This is a self-contained episode of The History of Literature, in which both the story and a discussion of it are provided. No prior reading necessary (unless you’d like to)! Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com.   *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.  Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.

0:07.0

Hello, I'm Jack Wilson.

0:11.0

Welcome to The History of Literature. Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast.

0:23.0

I'm so glad you're

0:25.0

the man.

0:26.0

Okay, here we go.

0:32.0

Welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here with me.

0:35.0

It's Thanksgiving week here in the States and I am very thankful.

0:39.0

As always, thankful for my family, thankful for literature, and thankful. Thank you have chosen to spend a little time with me.

0:45.0

I'm thankful for my recovering health,

0:50.0

which is why we missed a week.

0:52.0

My apologies for that. We'll try to make it up in the future.

0:56.1

We have a draft coming up soon and a Mike Palandrome solo episode, maybe a dual solo episode, so you will get plenty of history of

1:07.2

literature goodness very soon. Today we have a great show Jumpah Lih of me wants to follow a 50 year rule when it comes to literature

1:16.6

I'm interested in the history of literature after all and history doesn't really come into focus for a generation or two.

1:24.0

But sometimes we make exceptions.

1:27.0

Alice Monroe, for example, she's so good.

1:30.0

Why would we wait?

1:32.0

And sometimes, it's just fun to take on something that isn't all

1:36.0

crusted over with commentary and criticism.

1:39.0

Sometimes reading the contemporary wakes us up.

1:42.0

I'll put today's author in both those

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