The Lowland
In the marshy lowland behind their childhood home in Calcutta, brothers Subhash and Udayan Mitra grow up inseparable through the late nineteen fifties and early sixties. Subhash is cautious and steady; Udayan is restless, drawn to the Naxalite movement and its dream of armed revolution against caste and capital. The brothers' lives diverge when Subhash leaves for graduate school in Rhode Island and Udayan stays, marries a young philosophy student named Gauri, and is killed by police in a paddy field outside their parents' house. Summoned home by the catastrophe, Subhash makes a decision that will quietly reshape three lives: he marries his brother's pregnant widow and brings her with him to America. Across forty years and two continents, Jhumpa Lahiri traces what that act gives and takes from each of them, drawing one of her most ambitious portraits of family, exile, and the long aftermath of political violence.
Where The Lowland keeps showing up
One of our editors' lists features this novel.
What you might want to know about The Lowland
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Subhash and Udayan Mitra grow up close in 1960s Calcutta near a marshy lowland. Subhash leaves to study oceanography in Rhode Island while Udayan stays and joins the Naxalite movement. After a gunshot in their courtyard, Subhash flies home and marries his brother's pregnant widow.
The Lowland was shortlisted for the 2013 Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction. Jhumpa Lahiri previously won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her 2000 story collection Interpreter of Maladies.
The Lowland is fictional but built around real Naxalite political violence in 1960s Calcutta. Jhumpa Lahiri researched the documented history of the Bengali Communist movement extensively.
The Lowland was written by Jhumpa Lahiri, published in 2013 by Vintage.
The Lowland is 388 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Lowland takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
The Lowland is a standalone novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, not part of a series.
The Lowland is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
