St. Louis Literary Award Events to Kick Off with Screening of “The Namesake,” Talk with Director Mira Nair

ST. LOUIS - Saint Louis University will welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri to campus in 2026 to receive the St. Louis Literary Award. Literary Award programming kicks off the week of Oct. 27 with a showing of the film "The Namesake" and a discussion with director Mira Nair.

Lahiri is the author of the novels “The Namesake,” “The Lowland,” and “In Altre Parole,” among others. She also wrote the short story collections “Interpreter of Maladies” and “Unaccustomed Earth,” and she is the author of poetry and the non-fiction “The Clothing of Books” and “Translating Myself and Others.”

She received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for “Interpreter of Maladies,” her debut story collection which explores issues of love and identity among immigrants and cultural transplants. The novel “The Namesake” was named a New York Times Notable Book and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. A film version, directed by Mira Nair, was released in 2006.

“Unaccustomed Earth” received the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and was a finalist for the Story Prize. Her book, “The Lowland,” won the DSC award for South Asian fiction and was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award in fiction.

The St. Louis Literary Award includes a Campus Read series, which is open to the public; the Undergraduate Writing Award; Literature & Medicine; Inspired By Arts Showcase for High School and College Students; and the Walter J. Ong S.J. Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Research. 

The Campus Read book is “Interpreter of Maladies.” 

Literary Award Events 

SLU will kick off 2026 Literary Award programming with two events in October.

Monday, Oct. 27

SLU will host a screening of “The Namesake,” the 2006 film based on Lahiri’s novel and directed by Mira Nair. The event is co-sponsored by Student Development.

• When: 7-9 p.m. Monday, Oct, 27
• Where: Anheuser-Busch Auditorium in the Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business, 3674 Lindell Blvd.
• Cost: Free and open to the public 

Thursday, Oct. 30

The Literary Award will hold a panel discussion with director Mira Nair at noon on Thursday, Oct. 30. Nair will appear via Zoom.

The panel will include Edward Ibur, executive director of the St. Louis Literary Award Programs; Joya Uraizee, Ph.D., English professor at SLU; Ruth Bouman, a senior majoring in English and History; Sharonda Stith, a graduate student in Theological Studies at SLU; and Charles Turnell, a junior majoring in political science and the treasurer of the SLU Cinema Club.

Nair is an Academy-Award nominated director best known for her visually dense films that pulsate with life. Her debut feature, “Salaam Bombay!” (1988) won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes, followed by the groundbreaking “Mississippi Masala” (1991), the Golden Globe & Emmy-winning “Hysterical Blindness” (2001) and the international hit “Monsoon Wedding” (2001), for which she was the first woman to win Venice Film Festival’s coveted Golden Lion.

Also known for her literary craftsmanship of subcontinental fiction, Mira has filmed “The Namesake,” “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” (2012), “Vanity Fair” (2004), “A Suitable Boy” (2020) and “Queen of Katwe” (2016). At home everywhere, in 2021 she directed the TV pilot of the iconic film “National Treasure.” She returned to the theatre for her most recent endeavor, directing Monsoon Wedding the Musical, which opened in New York City at St. Ann Warehouse in May 2023 and is bound for the West End in 2026. 

Her next feature films will be “AMRI,” an experimental portrait of Amrita Sher-Gil, India’s pioneering modern artist, and “BRO,” a searing tale of class, conflict and revenge in contemporary India. A book on Mira Nair’s cinema will be published by Rizzoli in 2026. 

An activist by nature, Nair founded Salaam Baalak Trust for street children in 1989, and the Maisha Film Lab in East Africa to train film makers on the continent in 2004. In 2012, she was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian honour.

• When: 12 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30
• Where: Anheuser-Busch Auditorium in the Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business, 3674 Lindell Blvd.
• Cost: Free and open to the public

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Born in London, Jhumpa Lahiri moved to Rhode Island as a young child with her Bengali parents. She is a graduate of Barnard College and has a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies from Boston University.

In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the prestigious National Humanities Medal. As well as the Pulitzer Prize, Lahiri has been awarded the PEN/Hemingway Award, an O. Henry Prize, the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Vallombrosa Von Rezzori Prize, the Asian American Literary Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story and in 2024 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Lahiri received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002 and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 2006.

Previously, she was the director of Princeton University’s Program in Creative Writing. She is now the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Barnard College, Columbia University. She was named a Commander of the Italian Republic in 2019 by President Sergio Mattarella.

St. Louis Literary Award 

The St. Louis Literary Award, now housed in the College of Arts & Sciences, is presented annually by Saint Louis University and has become one of the top literary prizes in the country. The award honors a writer who deepens our insight into the human condition and expands the scope of our compassion. Some of the most influential writers of the 20th and 21st centuries have come to Saint Louis University to accept the honor, including Margaret Atwood, Salmon Rushdie, Eudora Welty, John Updike, Saul Bellow, August Wilson, Stephen Sondheim, Zadie Smith and Tom Wolfe. 

Saint Louis University

Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers more than 13,500 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.