Selected Shorts: An Evening with Jhumpa Lahiri

Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri (The Namesake) introduces readings from Unaccustomed Earth, her highly anticipated second story collection, and talks about her work with an admiring fellow writer. The superbly crafted stories in the new collection follow characters from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand.

Performance playlist:

Hell-Heaven by Jhumpa Lahiri
Performed by Rita Wolf

Conversation: Jhumpa Lahiri and Isaiah Sheffer

Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London and raised in Rhode Island. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the author of two previous books. Her debut collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award and The New Yorker Debut of the Year. Her novel The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was selected as one of the best books of the year by USA Today and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications. Unaccustomed Earth, her second story collection, has just been published. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Isaiah Sheffer is a founder and the artistic director of Symphony Space, as well as host and director of Selected Shorts live at Symphony Space, on tour, and on public radio nationwide. He is also the founder, director, co-writer, and host of Symphony Space's political cabaret series, The Thalia Follies.

Rita Wolf was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her role in David Greig's The American Pilot at Manhattan Theatre Club. Her other theatre credits include David Hare's Stuff Happens at the Public Theater; Hanif Kureishi's Borderline; and Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul, presented at New York Theatre Workshop and Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her film credits include Stephen Frears' My Beautiful Laundrette. She is a founding member of the London based KALI Theatre Company. Recently, Wolf narrated the audiobook recording of Benazir Bhuttos' Reconciliation, available at audible.com.