Campus Read Speaker Series Invites Participants to Discuss the Writings of Jhumpa Lahiri
Maggie Rotermund
Senior Media Relations Specialist
maggie.rotermund@slu.edu
314-977-8018
Reserved for members of the media.
As part of the St. Louis Literary Award series of programs honoring the 2026 award recipient Jhumpa Lahiri, the Saint Louis University 2026 Campus Read Speaker Series and Book Discussion will highlight Lahiri’s work, with a focus on her award-winning work “Interpreter of Maladies.”
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 2007.
“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.
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.
2026 Campus Read Speaker Series
Dialogue with a Tortoise, Dialogue with a Traveler: Jhumpa Lahiri’s translation
Building on a prior Los Angeles Review of Books article in 2019, the presentation will introduce the concept of “traveler dialogue” as a complement to “tourist realism.”
Robert Wood, Ph.D. is the creative director of the Centre for Stories based in Perth, Western Australia. It is an arts non-profit that shares stories for social impact and offers workshops, events, publications, mentoring and festivals. Prior to taking up this role in 2018, he was an endeavor fellow in the writing department at Columbia University in New York City. Wood is the author of five books and has a doctorate from the University of Western Australia, a masters from the University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor's degree from the Australian National University.
A person of Indian origin with family connection to Kerala, Wood was the editor of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2016-2017 and a monthly columnist with the Los Angeles Review of Books from 2017-2020. He was awarded a 40 Under 40 Asian Australian of the Year in 2021 and a Sir Edward Weary Dunlop Fellow in 2024 from Melbourne University. He has delivered lectures at Cambridge, Berkeley and Peking Universities amongst others.
The event is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 19, and will be livestreamed from Perth.
“La Traversata”/“The Crossing”: Lessons from Jhumpa Lahiri as a Translator
In this presentation, Nathan Dize, Ph.D., assistant professor of French at Washington University in St. Louis, will examine Jhumpa Lahiri’s writings from 2016 to the present day to derive a set of lessons that she imparts to readers when she makes the switch from a career writing in English to a life spent living, writing, and translating in Italian. The works Dize will consider include her books of non-fiction “In Other Words”/“In altre parole” (2016), “The Clothing of Books” (2016), “Translating Myself and Others” (2022), as well as the fiction she authored first in Italian and later translated into English by herself, or with others – “Whereabouts” (2018) and “Roman Stories” (2023). By focusing on the second act of Lahiri’s creative life, Dize argues that Lahiri teaches us about the power of vulnerability, how to embrace our fears and how language learning can transform our lives.
Dize’s work is situated at the intersection of French Caribbean literary and intellectual history, African Diaspora studies, translation studies. He is currently working on two projects: “Attending to the Dead: Haitian Literature and the Practice of Mourning” (SUNY Press) and “Handle with Care: The Legacies of African American Translators of Francophone Literature” (LSU Press). He is also a translator of Haitian literature, and his translations include the novels “Duels” by Néhémy Dahomey, “The Immortals” and “The Emperor” by Makenzy Orcel, “I Am Alive” by Kettly Mars and “Antoine of Gommiers” by Lyonel Trouillot.
The event is scheduled for noon on Thursday, March 19, in Adorjan Hall, Room 142 or via livestream.
Rooted Journeys: Migration, Art and the Natural World
This interdisciplinary panel discussion brings together experts from the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Missouri Botanical Garden and Saint Louis University to explore how nature, migration and memory shape the worlds of Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies.” Through perspectives from art history, botany, anthropology and literature, the conversation reveals how landscapes - both real and imagined - become central to stories of identity, belonging and healing.
The panel includes:
- Amy Cooper, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology at Saint Louis University
- Wendy Applequist, Ph.D., ethnobiologist at the Missouri Botanical Garden
- Heather Alexis Smith, assistant curator at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation
- Joya Uraizee, Ph.D., professor of English at Saint Louis University.
The panel will be moderated by Edward Ibur, executive director of the St. Louis Literary Award.
The event is scheduled for noon p.m. on Thursday, March 26, at the Missouri Botanical Garden or via livestream.
All Campus Reads will be livestreamed via Zoom.
Campus Read Book Discussions
Corinne Wohlford Mason, Ph.D., from SLU’s Department of Women and Gender Studies, is leading a book club focusing on "Interpreter of Maladies." Each monthly discussion will highlight a specific story from the collection. These discussions are open to SLU students, faculty and staff and will be held 6:30 - 8 p.m., on Mondays. Upcoming dates and locations include:
- Feb. 16 – “Sexy” (McGannon 144)
- March 16 – “Mrs. Sen’s” (McGannon 144)
- April 13 – “This Blessed House” (McGannon 144)
- May 25 – “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” (Zoom)
- June 15 – “The Third and Final Continent” (Zoom)
The 2026 St. Louis Literary Award ceremony is on April 8, at the Sheldon Concert Hall. A craft talk will take place on April 9 on the campus of Saint Louis University. Tickets for Literary Award Ceremony are on sale through Metrotix.