The Unaccustomed Earth - A review

While Jhumpa Lahiri is definitely one of the best writers of her generation, she has 1 drawback. And that is, she knows very little about India other than Bengal. And this is what the 3rd novel also highlights like its 2 predecessors. All her female characters sport large bindis are round faced, and wear cotton sarees and put vermilion on their hair partitions. The Bengali men are even more boring stereotypes. Her attention to detail is commendable but I wish she had more knowledge about India other than the ‘dirty Kolkata’.

That there’s more to life here other than the main protagonist’s relative’s death and funerals is not known to the author. If she wants to attract more readers from the Indian sub continent she had better extend her reach beyond Bengal. Well we can’t expect much more from NRI’s like Jhumpa who come to India once in a Blue moon. But atl least she has got the talent to write meaningful stuff about India. Then why not use that and not write these repetitive type of stories.

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