My first conversations with Jhumpa Lahiri took place in Rome this past July, in her apartment near the Janiculum, above Trastevere. It was an extremely hot summer ... James, looks out on the ...

Jhumpa Lahiri ... human condition.” Lahiri first came on the literary scene in 1999 with her short-story collection “Interpreter of Maladies.” That book, which looks at the lives of ...