The next three stories are a trio of linked stories by Jhumpa Lahiri about Hema and Kaushik, two children of migrants to the US who first meet as their parents settle into new lives, then meet again many years later.
In quiet elegant prose Lahiri captures the growing years of Hema and Kaushik, following them as their families set up home in a new country, navigate sickness and prosper rootless in new land. The stories capture the trials of the death of a parent, a father’s remarriage; step-siblings; travel alone to Europe. When Hema and Kaushik meet by chance they both experience a sense of connection.
“She still remembered her first impression of him, a quiet teenager in a jacket and tie, refusing her mother’s food. She remembered the ridiculous attraction she had felt that night, when she was thirteen years old and that she had secretly nurtured during the weeks they lived together. It was as if no time had passed.”
‘Once In A Lifetime’ and ‘Year’s End’ first published in The New Yorker, and available to subscribers to read here and here. All three stories collected in Unaccustomed Earth, Bloomsbury 2008
A Personal Anthology 