But Jhumpa Lahiri gave her interpreter another, somewhat peculiar matter to interpret: the malaise of men and women. The idea of a person who must find exact, efficacious words for ills appealed to me. I went home satisfied with my new purchase. But I was already convinced, even before I started reading, that I had discovered a splendid definition for someone who, in today’s globalized world, sets out to tell stories. For what is a writer, if not an interpreter of maladies?
