Jhumpa Lahiri wins Malamud Award for short-story excellence

NEW YORK – Two short fiction collections by Jhumpa Lahiri have convinced prize judges that she’s a worthy recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.

Lahiri will receive $5,000 and will read at a December ceremony in Washington, D.C.

The award selection committee on Wednesday praised her for “deep introspection” and “meticulous attention” to language. It cited her books “Unaccustomed Earth” and “The Interpreter of Maladies,” a debut book of stories for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000.

She also has written the novels “The Lowland” and “The Namesake.”

The Malamud prize is named for late author Bernard Malamud. Previous winners include Saul Bellow, Alice Munro and George Saunders.