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Bharati Mukherjee Indian-born author of seven novels, two nonfiction books, and two collections of short stories

Bharati Mukherjee

Biography Of Bengali origin, Bharati Mukherjee was born in Calcutta, West Bengal, India. She later traveled with her parents to Europe after Independence, only returning to Calcutta in the early 1950s. There she attended the Loreto School, Kolkata. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Calcutta in 1959 and her Master of Arts from the University of Baroda in 1961. She next traveled to the United States to study at the University of Iowa. She received her Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1963 and her Doctor of Philosophy in 1969 from the department of Comparative Literature.

Mukherjee married writer Clark Blaise in 1963. Together they have written two works of nonfiction, Days and Nights in Calcutta (1977) and The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy (1987). After more than a decade living in Canada (Montreal and Toronto), Mukherjee, Blaise, and their children returned to the United States. Mukherjee wrote of the decision in An Invisible Woman, published in a 1981 issue of Saturday Night.

Mukherjee has taught at McGill University, Skidmore College, Queens College, and City University of New York.

An early and popular work of fiction is Jasmine 1989. In this novel, a young Indian woman becomes an illegal immigrant to the United States and acculturates by taking on a series of different identities.

Mukherjee strives in her novels to understand what is meant by the idea of an American identity, and whether in a world of hybridity and multiplicity, such a notion can exist. This is particularly evident in her more recent works The Holder of the World (1993), Leave It to Me (1997) and Desirable Daughters (2002). Her latest novel is The Tree Bride, (2004).

Mukherjee is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a U.S. citizen.

Relationship

  • Husband is author Clark Blaise

University Affiliation

  • Instructor in English, Marquette University
    Lecturer, University of Wisconsin, Madison
    Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor, McGill University
    Professor, Skidmore College
    Associate Professor, Montclair State College
    Professor, CUNY-Queens College
    Part-time faculty, Columbia University and New York University
    Visiting faculty, The Writers' Workshop, University of Iowa
    Isaac and Madeleine Stein Visiting Chair, Stanford University
    Professor of English, University of California, Berkeley

Agents

  • Lynn Nesbit

Contact Agents

  • Janklow & Nesbit Associates
    445 Park Avenue
    New York, NY 10022
    (212) 421-1700

Publishers

  • Fawcett
    Grove Press
    Hyperion
    Penguin Group USA
    Random House
    Ruminator Books
    Viking Press

Contact Publishers

  • Hyperion
    Hyperion Editorial Department
    77 West 66th Street, 11th Floor
    New York, NY 10023