Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Nilanjana Sudheshna Lahiri aka Jhumpa Lahiri, was born on July 11, 1967 in London, England to a Bengali immigrant couple from Calcutta, India. Her father opted to relocate to the US for work, eventually settling in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, when she was still a small child. Lahiri attended the Barnard College in New York, focusing on English literature and later joined the student body of Boston University, earning three literary master's degrees before receiving her doctorate in Renaissance studies. She published her debut novel, Interpreter of Maladies, in the year 1999, which won her the coveted Pulitzer Prize, then went on to write an exceptional tale of an immigrant couple in the US – The Namesake – after a four-year hiatus in 2003. Lahiri then returned to writing short stories with Unaccustomed Earth, which became the No. 1 New York Times best-seller. The novel she wrote in 2013, The Lowland, was partially inspired by real-world political events.