Monday, April 21, 2008

The power of a brand..

Jhumpa Lahiri is no doubt a fantastic writer. What is even more
powerful than her writing today is the "brand" that has encompassed
her work. Lahiri is now one of the most powerful brands in the
literary world. Her book is now on the New York Times bestseller list.

"Lahiri, an author in the literary genre, has become so popular that
Knopf has reportedly printed 300,000 copies of her latest book,
similar to the amount of copies printed for books by popular fiction
authors like John Grisham," this is from a piece that I wrote for Idol
Chatter.

All the reviews of her latest book Unaccustomed Earth have been
fantastic, taking a powerful writer to even more heights, than she
could have ever imagined. Perhaps the only review that is critical of
her work with surprising logic is the one at www.Desicritics.org says
"Reading the collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri in
Unaccustomed Earth is like unwrapping layer upon layer of a much
anticipated gift only to find a mundane trinket in the end. Lahiri
seems to take perverse pleasure in playing bad Santa who stuffs the
stockings of her readers with coal, when in fact she could have easily
gratified us with eight beautiful presents. I am not entirely sure why
she would want to do what she does with unerring success story after
story. Is this by design or an unintended consequence?"

Read the full review at --
http://desicritics.org/2008/04/20/114322.php

Read the Idol Chatter piece about Lahiri becoming a pop-culture icon at--
http://blog.beliefnet.com/idolchatter/2008/04/jhumpa-lahiri-a-new-pop-cultur.html

Some glowing reviews and interviews with Lahiri can be read at the links below--
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200802u/jhumpa-lahiri
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/books/04Book.html?ref=review
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=b458594b-ac96-4572-8b8b-bedcd27bbf5e
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89236881

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