Bharati Mukherjee (born July 27, 1940) is an Indian-born American writer who is currently a professor in the department of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Read full biography of Bharati Mukherjee →
I feel empowered to be a different kind of writer. The longer I stay here, the more light filters into my work. I feel very American. I belong.
I have tried very hard as a novelist to say, 'Novels are about individuals and especially larger than life individuals.'
Mother Teresa's detractors have accused her of overemphasizing Calcuttans' destitution and of coercing conversion from the defenseless. In... →
I thought of America as Natalie Wood and Bob Wagner sprawled on the edge of a Hollywood swimming pool biting into the same red apple.
Through my fiction, I make mainstream readers see the new Americans as complex human beings, not as just 'The Other.'
My first novel, 'The Tiger's Daughter,' embodies the loneliness I felt but could not acknowledge, even to myself, as I negotiated the no... →
The United States exists as a sovereign nation. 'America,' in contrast, exists as a myth of democracy and equal opportunity to live by, or as... →
There was no audience for my books. The Indians didn't regard me as an Indian and North Americans couldn't conceive of me of a North American... →
I have to put down roots where I decide to stay. It wasn't enough for me to be an expatriate Indian in Canada. If I can't feel that I can... →
Lepers were a common sight all over India and in every part of Calcutta, but extending help beyond dropping a coin or two into their rag-wrapped... →
I don't feel the depression the people who are always looking back to the '50s, to 'Father Knows Best' feel. I can see the coming of... →
I truly appreciate the special qualities that America and American national myths offer me.
As a bookish child in Calcutta, I used to thrill to the adventures of bad girls whose pursuit of happiness swept them outside the bounds of social... →
Bharati Mukherjee (born July 27, 1940) is an Indian-born American writer who is currently a professor in the department of English at the University of California, Berkeley.