Bharati Mukherjee facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Bharati Mukherjee
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Speaking at the US Ambassador's residence in Israel, June 11, 2004
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| Born | Bharati Mukherjee July 27, 1940 Calcutta, Bengal Province, British India (present-day Kolkata, West Bengal, India) |
| Died | January 28, 2017 (aged 76) Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S. |
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| Nationality | Indian American Canadian |
| Genre | Novels, short stories, essays, travel literature, journalism. |
| Subjects | Post-colonial Anglophone fiction, Asian American fiction, autobiographical narratives, memoirs, American culture, immigration history, reformation and nationhood in the '90s, multiculturalism vs. mongrelization, fiction writing, autobiography writing, and the form and theory of fiction. |
| Notable works | Jasmine |
| Spouse | Clark Blaise |
Bharati Mukherjee was a famous writer. She was born in India and later became an American and Canadian citizen. She wrote many novels, short stories, and non-fiction books. She also taught English at the University of California, Berkeley. She lived from July 27, 1940, to January 28, 2017.
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Growing Up and Learning
Bharati Mukherjee was born in Kolkata, India, in 1940. At that time, India was ruled by the British. Her family was Hindu and from the Bengali region.
After India became independent, she traveled to Europe with her parents. They returned to Kolkata in the early 1950s. There, she went to the Loreto School.
She earned her first degree from the University of Calcutta in 1959. Then, she got her master's degree from Maharaja Sayajirao University in 1961.
After that, she moved to the United States to study more. She earned another master's degree in 1963. She also received her PhD in 1969 from the University of Iowa.
Her Writing Career
Bharati Mukherjee lived in Montreal and Toronto, Canada, for over ten years. Later, she and her husband, Clark Blaise, moved back to the United States. She wrote about this decision in an essay called "An Invisible Woman."
Bharati Mukherjee and Clark Blaise wrote two books together. One was Days and Nights in Calcutta (1977). The other was The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy (1987). This book was about a sad event in history.
Besides writing, Mukherjee was also a professor. She taught at several universities. These included McGill University, Skidmore College, and City University of New York. Later, she joined the faculty at UC Berkeley.
In 1988, she won a special award for her book of short stories. It was called The Middleman and Other Stories. This award was the National Book Critics Circle Award.
In an interview in 1989, Mukherjee said she saw herself as an American writer. She felt her writing was part of American literature.
Bharati Mukherjee passed away on January 28, 2017. She was 76 years old. She is remembered for her important contributions to literature.
Her Books
Bharati Mukherjee wrote many different kinds of books.
Novels
- The Tiger's Daughter (1971)
- Wife (1975)
- Jasmine (1989)
- The Holder of the World (1993)
- Leave It to Me (1997)
- Desirable Daughters (2002)
- The Tree Bride (2004)
- Miss New India (2011)
Short Story Collections
- Darkness (1985)
- The Middleman and Other Stories (1988)
- A Father
- The Management of Grief
Memoirs
- Days and Nights in Calcutta (1977, with Clark Blaise)
Non-fiction Books
- The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy (1987, with Clark Blaise)
- Political Culture and Leadership in India (1991)
- Regionalism in Indian Perspective (1992)
Awards and Honors
- 1988: National Book Critics Circle Award for The Middleman and Other Stories.
- 2013: She received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) from Whittier College. This is a special degree given to honor a person's achievements.
