Bernard Malamud was born in 1914 in New York City and later received his B. A. from City College of New York and his M. A. from Columbia University. All of Malamud's works are highly respected, including "Armistice" (his first), "The Magic Barrel," which won the National Book Award, "The Fixer," which received a Pulitzer Prize. "The Assistant," "The Natural," "The Fixer," and "The Angel Levine," which were all adapted as films. Bernard Malamud died in 1986.
Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London, England on July 11, 1967. She received a B.A. in English literature from Barnard College in 1989, and later received a M.A. in English, a M.A. in Creative Writing, a M.A. in Comparative Studies in Literature and the Arts, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies from Boston University. Lahiri taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Her debut work, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2000. She has also won the PEN/Hemmingway Award, an O. Henry Award, The New Yorker's best debut of the year award, and an Addison Metcalf award. Her other works include The Namesake, which was made into a movie in… 2007, and Unaccustomed Earth. Lahiri primarily writes about Indian immigrants in America who must navigate between the cultural values of their birthplace and their adopted home.