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In the Studio: Shreya Gupta

January 14, 2025

When the chance came to work on Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Interpreter of Maladies, illustrator Shreya Gupta didn’t have to be asked twice. ‘Working for Folio has been a long-held ambition and I love the book, so to work on this, the first ever illustrated version, was the dream job and incredible to be involved in!’

Lahiri’s book comprises nine loosely connected short stories, in which she explores the tension between tradition and modernity for Indians living in exile. Many of the stories are about immigrants living in the United States. ‘Living in the US myself, I am culturally a little different from Indians who were born here,’ says Gupta. ‘That’s something reflected in the stories that I connected with.’

Gupta hasn’t always been an illustrator. ‘My undergraduate degree is in computer science engineering and I actually started out as an IT engineer in India,’ she says. ‘Then I decided to change careers.’ A passion for drawing brought her to the US to study illustration at New York’s School of Visual Arts, but her tech background still informs her creative work. ‘I think very logically, and I think that is why I like smart conceptual ideas.’

Gupta also works as a book cover designer at Grand Central Publishing, part of Hachette, so her illustration work is done in the evenings and weekends from her studio apartment in New York.

‘I have a nice, peaceful set-up in the corner,’ she says. White noise is a constant in the background while she works. ‘I think it’s because it’s noisy where I’m from in India, so complete silence throws me.’

‘Although I live in the US, I am culturally a little different from Indians who were born here.’

Her methods are completely digital, using Procreate on her iPad then colouring in Photoshop. ‘My usual process is to read the text and see what jumps out and excites me. I look for the mood of the story and try to reflect that in my illustration.’

In this case, it was Lahiri’s humour that immediately struck her. ‘The story that made me laugh out loud was “The Blessed House”,’ she says. ‘It’s about a newly married Hindu couple who move into a new house and find items of Christian paraphernalia left by the previous owners. My illustration for a party scene shows the husband standing with slumped shoulders and an image of Jesus stuck on top of him, like it’s being forced on him.’ The concept for all the illustrations in the book grew from there. ‘I had this idea of having a scene from each story with an additional image over the top, to add another layer of meaning.’

As for the cover, Gupta took inspiration from Lahiri’s foreword to the new Folio book, in which the author reflects on the immigrant experience. ‘My cover illustration is flowers taking root and blooming, representing immigrants moving to a new place and making their life there. Even though they may face hardship, they still make it work.’

Illustrations: © Shreya Gupta from Interpreter of Maladies
Photography: © Ishita Jain