Wednesday, 02 August 2023
Previously unpublished stories by the renowned South Asian American writer, Bharati Mukherjee, will be featured in a new book that will be released later this month.
Mukherjee is best known for her novel, Jasmine, and her breakthrough collection, The Middleman and Other Stories, which won the 1988 National Book Critics Circle Award. Her writing is distinguished as much by its narrative style and shifting points of view as it is by Mukherjee’s piercing emotional observations on the immigrant experience and her depiction of racism, nostalgia, and displacement.
The Collected Short Stories of Bharati Mukherjee (Publication Date: August 25, 2023) is the first volume to feature the late author’s complete short fiction—all 35 stories. Leading Mukherjee scholar Dr Ruth Maxey edits the collection, unearthing seven unknown stories: five in Mukherjee’s unpublished 1963 Iowa Writer’s Workshop M.F.A. thesis, The Shattered Mirror, and two tales from 2008.
I’m hugely proud of this special book which allows new readers to discover the remarkable contributions Bharati Mukherjee made to American fiction and the short story in particular.
Arranged chronologically, this essential collection brings many of Mukherjee’s stories back into print, from the semi-autobiographical story, “Hindus,” in her 1985 debut collection, Darkness, to her late stories, published from 1997-2012, as well as her classic, “The Management of Grief.”
Dr Maxey contextualizes Mukherjee’s short fiction and the provocative, often prescient political questions it raises about migration, nationhood, class, and history. The Collected Short Stories of Bharati Mukherjee features a Foreword by prominent literary studies scholar Nalini Iyer and Afterword by critically acclaimed writer Lysley Tenorio, one of Mukherjee’s former students. It is an essential volume for readers both familiar with Mukherjee’s work and new to her groundbreaking fiction.
Story credits
Image credit: Manhattan Mall by The Singh Twins, 1997 Copyright The Singh Twins: www.singhtwins.co.uk
Notes to editors:
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