Fictional Works
Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake, 2002. Pulitzer prize winning author Lahiri is Hindu-American, and this novel traces the impact of Americanization on immigrants from India. It was recommended by an alum. It does a fine job of examining how names themselves are displacements, yet inescapably ours. An American-born Hindu boy is named Gogol by his father in memory of a Russian he meets. Predictably, Gogol connects to nothing through most of the novel; consequently, people are equally unable to connect to him. But life is one of coincidence and change, and we are as powerless to prevent it as we are to choose our own identities. An interesting read, noteworthy for its merging of cultural images, though repetitious in style over substantive movement. AP
Rudyard Kipling, Kim, 1983.
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha, 1951.
Non-Fiction Works
Peter Mathessien, The Snow Leopard, 1978.