Jhumpa Lahiri was born inLondon, England, in 1967. Her parents, natives of Bengal, India, soon moved the family to Rhode Island, where Lahiri grew up. Lahiri's father, Amar, is a librarian at theUniversity of Rhode Island, and her mother, Tia, is a teacher's aide. From childhood, Lahiri made frequent trips toIndia to visit relatives.

After receiving a bachelor's degree in English literature from Barnard College, Lahiri earned master' s degrees in English, creative writing, and comparative studies in literature and the arts, all fromBoston University. She went on to earn a doctorate in Renaissance studies at the same university.

"A Temporary Matter" first appeared in the New Yorker in 1998 and was among Lahiri's first published stories. It is the first story in the collection Interpreter of Maladies (1999), for which Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2000. The collection's title story also won an O. Henry award...