#her

At 6:30, which was when the national news began, my father raised the volume and adjusted the antennas. Usually I occupied myself with a book, but that night my father insisted that I pay attention. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#attention #began #book #father #i

For that story, I took as my subject a young woman whom I got to know over the course of a couple of visits. I never saw her having any health problems - but I knew she wanted to be married. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#couple #course #got #having #health

For years, I sort of would try to write a story that somehow fit the title. And I don't think it happened for maybe another four years that I actually thought of a story, the plot of a story that corresponded to that phrase. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#another #corresponded #fit #four #happened

He told me he was working as an interpreter in a doctor's office in Brookline, Massachusetts, where I was living at the time, and he was translating for a doctor who had a number of Russian patients. On my way home, after running into him, I just heard this phrase in my head. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#doctor #had #head #heard #him

I would not send a first story anywhere. I would give myself time to write a number of stories. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#first #give #i #myself #number

I've inherited a sense of that loss from my parents because it was so palpable all the time while I was growing up, the sense of what my parents had sacrificed in moving to the United States, and yet at the same time, building a life here and all that that entailed. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#building #entailed #growing #growing up #had

I've never had Internet access. Actually, I have looked at things on other people's computers as a bystander. A few times in my life I've opened email accounts, twice actually, but it's something I don't want in my life right now. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#accounts #actually #computers #email #few

In New York I was always so scared of saying that I wrote fiction. It just seemed like, 'Who am I to dare to do that thing here? The epicenter of publishing and writers?' I found all that very intimidating and avoided writing as a response. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#am #avoided #dare #fiction #found

It interests me to imagine characters shifting from one situation and one location to another for whatever the circumstances may be. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#characters #circumstances #imagine #interests #location

My parents had an arranged marriage, as did so many other people when I was growing up. My father came and had a life in the United States one way and my mother had a different one, and I was very aware of those things. I continue to wonder about it, and I will continue to write about it. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#arranged #aware #came #continue #did