NEW hardcover

The Namesake: A Portrait of the Film Based on the Novel by Jhumpa Lahiri Newmarket Pictorial Moviebooks Nair, Mira and Lahiri, Jhumpa

Original essays and glorious photography, stunningly designed in this unique moviebook from the director of Monsoon Wedding and Vanity Faira Fox Searchlight releaseIn her essay Writing and Film, the Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri writes about the experience of seeing her novel transposed from paper to film Its essence remains, but it inhabits a different realm and must, like a transposed piece of music, conform to a different set of rulesTo have someone as devoted and as gifted as Mira reinvent my novelhas been a humbling and thrilling passageMira Nairs essay, Photographs as Inspiration, begins with the provocative comment: If it werent for photography, I wouldnt be a filmmaker She explains how photographs help her crystallize the visual style of her films and which particular photos influenced her vision for The NamesakeThese two essays, written exclusively for this Newmarket Pictorial Moviebook, introduce an amazing panoply of images of people and places shot mainly in New York and Calcutta during the making of the movie, accented by excerpts from Lahiris bestselling novel Six Indian and American photographers works are representedBrilliantly illuminating the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations, The Namesake tells the story of the Ganguli family, whose move from Calcutta to New York evokes a lifelong balancing act to adapt to a new world while remembering the old The couples firstborn, Gogol, and sister Sonia grow up amid these divided loyalties, struggling to find their own identity without losing their heritage Kal Penn Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Superman Returns stars as Gogol