'I Don't Think Of Short Stories As A Secondary Option, Ever'

The Pulitzer winner talks about the two great loves of her life: her children and her writing. 'With young children, the days can be rather mercurial.'

Sheela Reddy INTERVIEWS Jhumpa Lahiri

14 April 2008

"With young children," as Jhumpa Lahiri puts it in her elegant, understated way, "the days can be rather mercurial." That hasn’t stopped her from finding the time to write a third book. In an interview with Sheela Reddy on the launch of Unaccustomed Earth, the Pulitzer winner talks about the two great loves of her life: her children and her writing.

You once remarked that winning the Pulitzer was like being a kid and winning a senior citizen’s award. Do you feel more comfortable as a Pulitzer winner now that you have written your third book?

Not really. It (Pulitzer) will always remain a very strange and in some senses very early, one may say premature, period for the writer I was at that time.

But it must help in terms of confidence levels?

Writing is so humbling, there’s no confidence involved. It helps to have some experience, a greater degree of familiarity with the process of writing. I think each time you start a story or novel or whatever, you are absolutely at the bottom of the ladder all over again. It doesn’t...