With a Foreword by Nalini Iyer and an Afterword by Lysley Tenorio
Pioneering Indian American writer Bharati 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 is the first volume to feature the author’s complete short fiction—all 35 stories. Leading Mukherjee scholar Ruth Maxey edits the collection, unearthing seven unknown stories: five in Mukherjee’s unpublished 1963 Iowa Writer’s Workshop M.F.A. thesis, The Shattered Mirror, and two tales from 2008. 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.” 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. Cover illustration: Manhattan Mall by The Singh Twins, 1997 Copyright © The Singh Twins: www.singhtwins.co.uk“This meticulously edited volume offers a less-traveled, lambent path into Bharati Mukherjee’s work, reintroducing the writer through her lifelong experiments with the short story genre. An immersion in the elusive meanings and restlessly shifting perspectives and settings of Mukherjee’s short stories invites reconsideration of her craft and concerns. Gathering together for the first time the unpublished short stories from her MFA thesis, alongside stories from her published but out-of-print later collections, as well as individually published pieces from throughout her career, this volume will surprise and stir Mukherjee admirers and critics of Mukherjee alike.”
—Susan Koshy, Associate Professor of English and Asian American Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and coeditor of Transnational South Asians: The Making of a Neo-Diaspora
“What a boon to scholars—and, indeed, to readers of all kinds—to be able to survey the full sweep of one of the truly emblematic literary careers of the postwar period in one volume. The consistency of emotional depth and intercultural intelligence achieved in Bharati Mukherjee’s short stories written across many decades is something wonderful to behold.”
—Mark McGurl, Professor of English, Stanford University, and author of The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing
"The Collected Short Stories of Bharati Mukherjee compiles the shorter works of the South Asian American author, showcasing Mukherjee’s exquisite flow of language and diverse range.... The Collected Stories of Bharati Mukherjee expands upon the legacy of an astute, masterful writer."—Foreword Reviews
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