2 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present

John M. Clum, Still Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000).
Includes a lengthy positive analysis of Angels in America.

James Fisher, The Theatre of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope (New York: Rout-
ledge, 2001).
Major study of Kushner’s works through 2000, with production histories and an
extensive bibliography.

Fisher, ed., Tony Kushner: New Essays on the Art and Politics of the Plays ( Jefferson,
N.C.: McFarland, 2006).
Twelve essays discussing Kushner’s work and its connections to plays by Tennes-
see Williams, William Inge, and Adrienne Kennedy.

Deborah R. Geis and Steven F. Kruger, eds., Approaching the Millennium: Essays
on Angels in America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997).
Eighteen essays on such subjects as racial and religious identities, AIDS and
politics, and Angels in America in performance.

Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987).
Detailed history and examination of the origins and spread of AIDS.

—John Spalding Gatton

h

Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)

It is rare for a debut book, especially a short-story collection, to achieve inter-
national best-seller status and to win such major literary awards as the Pulitzer
Prize and the PEN/Hemingway Award. Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies
achieved these distinctions. Consisting of nine stories, the collection features
characters, mostly South Asian, whose lives are marked by cultural hybridity,
migration, and increasing globalization. While some are newly arrived in America
from India, others are second generation, some have returned, and still others
have never left. Despite their geographical or cultural locations, all have ties to
the subcontinent. These pieces have been honored for Lahiri’s precise, evocative
prose, her skilled use of sensuous details—especially foods, fabrics, sounds—and
her depictions of the emotional complexities of love, family relationships, and
immigration.
Of Bengali descent, Lahiri was born in London in 1967 but immigrated
to the United States when she was three and was raised primarily in Kingston,
Rhode Island. She describes frequent family trips to Calcutta, India, while she
was growing up but also says she identifies strongly with her Bengali heritage