"When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough"
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Lahiri is quietly rejecting the most fashionable temptation in contemporary literary culture: to treat fiction as a delivery system for “content.” In an era when novels are often pitched like TED Talks with plot, she insists on a craft-first ethic where meaning is earned, not announced. The phrase “I don’t think about writing about an idea or a given message” isn’t anti-intellectual; it’s anti-slogan. It’s a refusal to flatten human experience into a thesis that can be blurbed, debated, or safely admired.
The real voltage is in “I just try to write a story which is hard enough.” “Hard” reads as a double exposure: hard to write (technically and emotionally) and hard to sit with (morally, relationally, psychologically). Lahiri’s best work often lives in the awkward middle spaces - immigration without triumphalism, intimacy without neat catharsis, identity without a single epiphany that solves it. Difficulty becomes a standard of honesty. If the story feels too easy, it’s probably performing.
There’s also a subtle defense of the reader. A “message” assumes an audience to be instructed. A hard story assumes an audience capable of interpretation, contradiction, and discomfort. Contextually, Lahiri’s position pushes back against the expectation that writers from marginalized or immigrant backgrounds should act as cultural translators or moral guides. She’s claiming the right to be opaque, demanding, and aesthetically driven - to make art that doesn’t arrive pre-labeled with its takeaway.
The real voltage is in “I just try to write a story which is hard enough.” “Hard” reads as a double exposure: hard to write (technically and emotionally) and hard to sit with (morally, relationally, psychologically). Lahiri’s best work often lives in the awkward middle spaces - immigration without triumphalism, intimacy without neat catharsis, identity without a single epiphany that solves it. Difficulty becomes a standard of honesty. If the story feels too easy, it’s probably performing.
There’s also a subtle defense of the reader. A “message” assumes an audience to be instructed. A hard story assumes an audience capable of interpretation, contradiction, and discomfort. Contextually, Lahiri’s position pushes back against the expectation that writers from marginalized or immigrant backgrounds should act as cultural translators or moral guides. She’s claiming the right to be opaque, demanding, and aesthetically driven - to make art that doesn’t arrive pre-labeled with its takeaway.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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