Dr Ushashi Dasgupta: List of publications

This essay considers Jhumpa Lahiri’s sustained interest in rereading: the act of returning to works of literature that are already familiar. Lahiri argues for the importance of this readerly practice, and it appears as both a plot motif and a critical concern across her fiction and translations. The essay places Lahiri alongside Gogol, Stendhal, and Austen (authors whom her characters reread), Domenico Starnone (whose Italian novellas she has translated into English), and Edward W. Said (who shaped the environment in which she studied, and whose ideas on repetition resonate strongly with hers). Her oeuvre shows, to striking effect, the value of repeat encounters with literature; at the same time, it explores the ways in which rereading can bring a range of cultural and ontological debates to light. In particular, rereading experiences raise questions about time, intimacy, and creativity.