Samanami

• Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
• Genre: Novel (Upanyas)
• Format: Hardcover

Book Details:

• Publisher: Ananda Publishers
• ISBN: 9788177565218
• Pages: 296
• Weight: 591 grams

Synopsis:

Samanami is a novel about identity, belonging, and cultural displacement.

In the late 1960s, Ashima, a young woman from North Kolkata, marries Ashoke Ganguli and moves to America with him. Despite her efforts, she struggles to accept the separation from her family and homeland.

When their first son is born in the U.S., he automatically becomes an American citizen. Due to a postal error, Ashima’s grandmother’s chosen name for the child is lost, forcing Ashoke to give him a temporary name—Gogol. His choice is not random; it is deeply personal, as a copy of Nikolai Gogol’s book once saved his life in a train accident.

However, as Gogol grows up, he resents his name and the Indian roots it symbolizes. He struggles with his dual identity, caught between his Bengali heritage and his American upbringing. Can he ever truly embrace his origins, or will he remain a man without a home?

This Bengali translation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s internationally acclaimed English novel The Namesake captures the essence of cultural displacement, family bonds, and the search for self.

About the Author:

Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of three critically acclaimed works:

• Interpreter of Maladies (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
• The Namesake
• The Unaccustomed Earth

She has received several prestigious awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award and The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. She is also a Guggenheim Fellow and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2012.