Achievers
Books
Business
Calender
Community
Controversy
Cuisine
Eateries
Education
Enterprise
Faith
Good Samaritans
Health
Infotech
Media
Memories
Movies
News Archives
Opinion
Specials
The Arts

Mukherjee will speak the truth

A Raghunath

For over three decades, Bharati Mukherjee has explored the immigrant life in North America in her critically acclaimed short story anthology and novels that have got her teaching assignments at top schools in America.

And come Wednesday she will address the staff and faculty at the University of California, Davis.

Mukherjee, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is the third author in the series, Women Who Speak the Truth.

She remains very much a woman who is speaking the truth while continuing to seek it.

'I want to grope my way into understanding the world by writing fiction,' she told the Sacramento Bee this week.

'The way I attempt to speak the truth is to get into many different peoples' heads and to look at a specific problem or specific conflict from many different angles so that there are no good guys or bad guys,' she says.

Mukherjee, 59, has lived in Canada (which she despises for its widespread racism, noting that she found life there too hard as a 'dark-skinned, non-European immigrant') and America for more than 39 years. Most of these years were spent in America.

'Writing is my way of working out what it means to be an American when you have many different cultural, ethnic heritages,' she said in an interview. 'Finding a home in America... It's something you can't take for granted if you're a minority person or immigrant.'

The author of such well-received books as Jasmine and Leave It to Me, she feels she is in a unique position to look at immigrant life and understand the soul of America.

Mukherjee, who migrated to America along with her Canadian husband, the novelist Clark Blaise, has embraced America enthusiastically, though her novels and op-ed pieces are critical of many things in America.

Why does she call herself American?

In an essay for Mother Jones magazine, the writer has said she has given up using 'Asian-American as a demand that America deliver the promises of its dream to all its citizens equally.'

Mukherjee, will speak at 1930 on Wednesday as part of the writers series, Women Who Speak the Truth; Varsity Theatre, 616 Second St, Davis.

Admission: $ 10 ($ 8 for students).

For information, call (530) 752-3372 or (916) 766-2277.

Previous: Expert warns about premature babies

Tell us what you think about this report