Jhumpa Lahiri Wins Frank O'Conner Award

Posted on July 8, 2008

The judges for the Frank O'Conner award usually issue a short list. But this year they were so impressed with one book that they simply announced it as the winner of the world's third richest honor for a short story collection. American author Jhumpa Lahiri will take the 35,000 Euro prize for her book, Unaccustomed Earth.

In what will be a shock to writers and publishers, Lahiri's collection of eight stories examining different aspects of the Bengali migrant experience has seen off authors including Booker winners Anne Enright and Roddy Doyle. But the book is already a publishing sensation: published this spring, it went straight into the New York Times's fiction charts at number one. It is an unprecedented feat for a short story writer which the paper compared to "a comet landing", so rarely does a serious writer make this kind of commercial impact. Indeed, unusual success has been the hallmark of her career since she published her first book of stories, Interpreter of Maladies, in 1999, winning the Pulitzer prize and selling 600,000 copies - another very rare feat.

Lahiri will head off to Cork, Ireland to pick up the award at the end of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story festival on September 21, 2008. Jhumpa was born in England, but moved to the United States when she was three. She grew up in the U.S. and holds multiple degrees from Boston University, including a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She has also won a Pulitzer Prize and the O. Henry Award. Congratulations, Jhumpa!