The Namesake American Classics Edition

One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels

"Dazzling...An intimate, closely observed family portrait."―The New York Times

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, HarperCollins is proud to present this library of American classics drawn from our storied catalog. The Namesake is a fine-tuned, deeply felt novel of identity from Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri that brilliantly illuminates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations.

Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world ― conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.

With penetrating insight, Lahiri reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves.

• A BEAUTIFUL PACKAGE WITH FLAPS: Featuring French flaps and a unique vivid cover design, each book in the collection is published as a deluxe trade paperback that is a part of a stunning series look.
• HARPER COLLINS AMERICAN CLASSICS: This series includes timeless novels, poetry, children's books, and groundbreaking nonfiction that has shaped American thought, literature, and identity across generations.
• AMERICA'S PUBLISHER: Since its founding in 1817, no American publisher has been so entwined in the history of American letters. Our books enrich, challenge, and defined the American spirit.
• AMERICA 250: The HarperCollins American Classics arrive in time for America's 250th anniversary celebrations.

JHUMPA LAHIRI, a bilingual writer and translator, is the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Barnard College, Columbia University. She received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies and is also the author of The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, The Lowland. Since 2015, Lahiri has been writing fiction, essays, and poetry in Italian: In Altre Parole (In Other Words), Il Vestito dei libri (The Clothing of Books), Dove mi trovo (self-translated as Whereabouts), Il quaderno di Nerina, and Racconti romani (Roman Stories). She received the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama in 2014, and in 2019 was named Commendatore of the Italian Republic by President Sergio Mattarella. Her most recent book in English, Translating Myself and Others, was a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.