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The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri: book review


The Lowland (2013) commences in 1957 in Calcutta, India. Subhash Mitra is thirteen-years-old and his brother, Udayan, is 15 months younger. They are inseparable. “When either name was called both were conditioned to answer.” Even their voices are indistinguishable. Although they are physically similar, they are very different in their personality. Subhash is placid and dutiful, whereas Udayan is mischievous and adventurous.

In the late 1960s at university the brothers started hearing about the city of Naxalbari in West Bengal and the conflict between the local farming peasants and the wealthy landowners of the tea plantations. Naxalbari became the “impetus for change” for other parts of West Bengal and some parts of India.

The closeness of the brothers is tested. It began with Udayan’s paintbrushed slogan on the wall of the Tolly Golf Club in their town of Tollygunge. Udayan painted “Long Live Naxalbari!” while Subhash kept lookout, as usual. This time though, only Udayan was proud of what he’d done. At the end of their university studies they were both overqualified and unemployed. Subhash goes to America to do a doctorate degree in marine chemistry. A year later Udayan marries Gauri, a woman of his choosing. Subhash is surprised that Udayan had kept this a secret for over a year – a relationship that had commenced before he left for Rhode Island, America.

In 1971, in his third year of university, Subhash receives a telegram from his family: “Udayan killed!” How and why? Udayan’s memory affects everyone’s life for years to come. Gauri is pregnant and widowed; Bela is a child deceived; Bijoli is a mother who loses both sons – one dead and the other a student in America; and Subhash is constantly haunted by his his “inseparable” brother and the decisions he made.

The book concludes with Subhash at seventy years of age, reflecting on his past actions and decisions, and all those affected by his brother Udayan. It’s a book with no one to love, no heroes, and no empathy.


Lahiri’s style is elegant and languid for this dark, depressing and brooding novel. If you can follow cyclical and repetitious flashbacks – which serve to emphasize Udayan’s death and legacy – then you’ll appreciate this family tragedy. Sometimes in life, history repeats.






MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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