NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling author of The Namesake comes an extraordinary novel, set in India and America, that tells the story of two brothers bound by tragedy, a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past, a country torn by revolution, and a love that lasts long past death.
Born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. It is the 1960s, and Udayan—charismatic and impulsive—finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty; he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes. Subhash, the dutiful son, does not share his brother’s political passion; he leaves home to pursue a life of scientific research in a quiet, coastal corner of America.
But when Subhash learns what happened to his brother in the lowland outside their family’s home, he goes back to India, hoping to pick up the pieces of a shattered family, and to heal the wounds Udayan left behind—including those seared in the heart of his brother’s wife.
Masterly suspenseful, sweeping, piercingly intimate, The Lowland is a work of great beauty and complex emotion; an engrossing family saga and a story steeped in history that spans generations and geographies with seamless authenticity. It is Jhumpa Lahiri at the height of her considerable powers.
Short-listed for National Book Award Finalist 2013
“"Poised, haunting, exquisitely effective storytelling. . . . Lahiri is one of our most beautiful chroniclers of the aching disjunctions of emigration and family." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Exquisite. . . . Lahiri explores here what she has always explored best: the fragile inner workings of her characters. . . . An American master." -- Philadelphia Inquirer "[Lahiri''s] finest work so far. . . . At once unsettling and generous. . . . Shattering and satisfying in equal measure." -- The New York Review of Books "Poignant. . . . There is an important truth here--that life often denies us understanding, and sometimes all there is to hold on to is our ability to endure." --NPR "Intriguing. . . . Brim[s] with pain and love and all of life''s profound beauty." -- O, The Oprah Magazine "Mesmerizing." -- The Washington Post Book World "In”
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book • A Time Top Fiction Book • An NPR "Great Read" • A Chicago Tribune Best Book • A USA Today Best Book • A People magazine Top 10 Book • A Barnes and Noble Best New Book • A Good Reads Best Book • A Kirkus Best Fiction Book • A Slate Favorite Book • A Christian Science Monitor Best Fiction Book • An Apple Top 10 Book
“Poised, haunting, exquisitely effective storytelling. . . . Lahiri is one of our most beautiful chroniclers of the aching disjunctions of emigration and family.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Exquisite. . . . Lahiri explores here what she has always explored best: the fragile inner workings of her characters. . . . An American master.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“[Lahiri’s] finest work so far. . . . At once unsettling and generous. . . . Shattering and satisfying in equal measure.”
—The New York Review of Books
“Poignant. . . . There is an important truth here—that life often denies us understanding, and sometimes all there is to hold on to is our ability to endure.”
—NPR
“Intriguing. . . . Brim[s] with pain and love and all of life’s profound beauty.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“Mesmerizing.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“In The Lowland, we are all emigrants, not from one country to another but from the present to the future. . . . Tremendous.”
—Lev Grossman, Time
“A masterful work that shines with brilliant language. . . . [Lahiri] has created a masterpiece.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Lahiri is an elegant stylist, effortlessly placing the perfect words in the perfect order time and again so we’re transported seamlessly into another place.”
—Vanity Fair
“Divided consciousness has been Lahiri’s recurrent theme. . . . This time, Lahiri daringly redraws the map. . . . [Her] prose is blunter, less mellifluous: here worlds, new and old, contain terrors.”
—The Atlantic
“A classic story of family and ideology at odds, love and risk closely twined. . . . An author, at the height of her artistry, spins the globe and comes full circle.”
—Vogue
“A great American writer.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Memorable, potent. . . . Lahiri has reached literary high ground with The Lowland.”
—USA Today
“A master of dramatic turns, but not in the conventional sense. She lets tension build slowly until something snaps. What she twists is you. . . . Lahiri shows that a twist can be even more devastating when you’ve been afraid that it might happen all along. A”
—Entertainment Weekly
“A must-read. . . . Delivers Lahiri’s trademark lyrical prose woven with a fast-paced narrative and indelible characters.”
—Slate
“Lahiri returns confidently to the themes that have earned her critical praise, an eager audience and a Pulitzer Prize. . . . [Here] she adds a historical dimension that creates a vital, intriguing backdrop. . . . [The] story is unique, but it’s also universal, a reminder of the past’s pull on us all.”
—The Miami Herald
“Expansive and intimate. . . . Lahiri’s writing is precise and restrained. . . . Loyalty and betrayal, lies and forgiveness, filial responsibility and abandonment, the choices and sacrifices we make to find our way in the world are beautifully wrought in this novel.”
—The Oregonian
“Subtle but devastating. . . . The themes of this beautifully written novel may be grand—love, revolution, desertion—but it’s an intimate tale that offers no easy answers.”
—Parade
“The kind of book that stays with you long after you finish it. . . . Full of sharp insights about marriage and parenthood, politics and commitment.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Delicately harrowing. . . . Lahiri has a devastatingly keen ear for the tensions and misunderstandings endemic in our closest relationships.”
—Bloomberg News
JHUMPA LAHIRI is the author of four works of fiction: Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland; and a work of nonfiction, In Other Words. She has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize; the PEN/Hemingway Award; the PEN/Malamud Award; the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award; the Premio Gregor von Rezzori; the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature; a 2014 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama; and the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia, for In altre parole.
This item is eligible for simple returns within 30 days of delivery. Return shipping is the responsibility of the customer. See our returns policy for further details.
