Books from India

Growing up in 1960s and 1970s Bombay, Thrity Umrigar navigates the contradictions of childhood in a middle-class Parsi family. Attending a Catholic school in a predominantly Hindu city, she becomes increasingly aware of the cultural, religious, and economic divisions that shape the world around her. At home, she experiences both the warmth of her father’s affection and the painful consequences of her mother’s harsh discipline. As she grows older, Umrigar begins questioning the expectations imposed on her and confronting the complicated truths of her family. Through intimate memories of childhood, adolescence, and her eventual departure for America at twenty-one, she reflects on identity, belonging, family secrets, and the inequalities of Indian society. First Darling of the Morning is a deeply personal memoir about growing up between cultures and finding the courage to imagine a life beyond the boundaries of one’s upbringing.

In Other Words is a memoir about Jhumpa Lahiri’s decision to learn Italian and her determination to express herself through a language that is not her own. Although she grew up speaking English and Bengali, Lahiri develops a deep fascination with Italian and eventually moves to Rome with her family to immerse herself in the language. Written originally in Italian and published with an English translation, the book reflects on the vulnerability, frustration, and freedom involved in learning to communicate in unfamiliar words. Through personal anecdotes, literary reflections, and metaphors, Lahiri compares language learning to migration, describing the experience of becoming an outsider in a place where she longs to belong. The memoir explores creativity, cultural identity, and the relationship between language and selfhood, revealing how adopting a new language can create space for reinvention and a different understanding of oneself.