An Interview with Bharati Mukherjee

Abstract

Bharati Mukherjee, an Indian-American immigrant author, is gaining increasing recognition in the U.S. Her two novels, The Tiger's Daughter (1971), Wife (1975), and her short story collec tion, Darkness (1985), have earned her high praise from critics here, as well as prestigious prizes, fellowships, and awards. Her nonac tion has also received attention. In her fictional works, one discovers portraits of herself and alternate selves. She gradually moves away from themes of expatri ation and nostalgia for old homes to focus on changing identities and the formation of emotional ties to North America. In The Tiger's Daughter, Mukherjee writes about a young Bengali woman who returns to her native Calcutta after having lived and married in the United States. The woman views the India of her childhood through new and disappointed eyes and realizes she has become an exile. The heroine of Wife is also a Bengali woman from Calcutta, but her preoccupation is with America. She struggles to adjust to life in New York City, where she has immi grated with her Indian husband, but the culture shock is too much for her and she is driven to despair, madness, and violence. In Darkness, Mukherjee expands her interest to include the growing community of South Asian immigrants to North Amer ica. She sees her "immigrant" story repeated in cities throughout America and identifies with her characters?businessmen, profes sors, housekeepers, illegal alien busboys?as they struggle to rebuild their lives and selves in a strange, new land. Now, in a new collection of tales, The Middlemen, published by Grove Press, Mukherjee writes about how these energetic and diverse immi grants are altering the face of this country. Like many of her immigrant characters, Mukherjee has decided to make the U.S. her permanent home. She currently resides in New York City, "a larger, slightly messier Calcutta," with her husband, Clark Blaise, also an author, and their two sons. She teaches writing at Columbia University and Queens College of City University. Before 1980, when she arrived in the U.S., she had been living in Canada.