Bharati Mukherjee (1940–2017) was an Indian-born American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and educator. Her works feature cultural changes faced by Americans of South Asian descent and the alienation in their immigrant experience.
Born in Calcutta to a distinguished family, Mukherjee studied at the University of Calcutta and the University of Baroda. She then entered the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where she earned an MFA (1963) and a PhD (1969.) After living in Canada 1966–80, she moved to America and taught post-colonial and world literature at Berkeley 1980–2017.
Mukherjee’s books include The Tiger’s Daughter (1971,) Jasmine (1989,) The Holder of the World (1993,) Desirable Daughters (2004,) and, most recently, Miss New India (2011.) With her husband, Clark Blaise, Mukherjee wrote The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy (1987) about the Flight 182 disaster.
Mukherjee’s short fiction books include Darkness (1985) and The Middleman and Other Stories (1988.) She also wrote many social analysis works, including Political Culture and Leadership in India (1991.) The Holder of the World (1993) turns the immigrant perspective around by describing an American woman’s experience of India.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Bharati Mukherjee
What was the duty of the teacher if not to inspire?
—Bharati Mukherjee
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