Mukherjee regales audience
Rod Aminian
Issue date: 2/8/08 Section: Entertainment
The ongoing Gonzaga Writers' Series, sponsored by the English Department, the Office of Intercultural Relations and Humanities Washington, hosted its fourth writer, novelist Bharati Mukherjee, in Cataldo Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 6.
Mukherjee is the first novelist to be featured in the series - all prior visiting writers were poets. With this in mind, it wasn't clear what to expect from Mukherjee's reading. Was it going to be satisfactory like Herman Asarnow's event? Or was it going to be lackluster and painfully awkward like Joy Harjo's reading/musical revue (depending on what parts of her performance you caught)?
A professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Mukherjee has authored more than a dozen books and began her career in writing when she first came to the United States in the 1960s to study. At the University of Iowa, she earned a master of fine arts in creative writing and a Ph.D. in English and comparative literature.
Being an immigrant to the United States, Mukherjee's work principally concerns themes of alienation, racism and the search for identity. Her early work, however, could be said to be more along the lines of juvenilia.
"My first workshop stories were sexual fantasies, and not very good at that," Mukherjee said. "My writing [since then] has been fueled by the experience of rooting and re-rooting."
Mukherjee explained the different literary approaches of immigrant authors from the Asian subcontinent. She said that there was a faction of writers whose writing reflects a sort of exile, an estrangement in a new place that never really faded.
Another faction is of the "expatriation" sort, in which the authors accept their new location, but engage in romantic nostalgia in reflection on their old home.
The final group of authors, in which Mukherjee claimed membership, was the "immigrant" type, in which the authors principally immerse themselves in their new country and write about their experiences there.
Mukherjee is the first novelist to be featured in the series - all prior visiting writers were poets. With this in mind, it wasn't clear what to expect from Mukherjee's reading. Was it going to be satisfactory like Herman Asarnow's event? Or was it going to be lackluster and painfully awkward like Joy Harjo's reading/musical revue (depending on what parts of her performance you caught)?
A professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Mukherjee has authored more than a dozen books and began her career in writing when she first came to the United States in the 1960s to study. At the University of Iowa, she earned a master of fine arts in creative writing and a Ph.D. in English and comparative literature.
Being an immigrant to the United States, Mukherjee's work principally concerns themes of alienation, racism and the search for identity. Her early work, however, could be said to be more along the lines of juvenilia.
"My first workshop stories were sexual fantasies, and not very good at that," Mukherjee said. "My writing [since then] has been fueled by the experience of rooting and re-rooting."
Mukherjee explained the different literary approaches of immigrant authors from the Asian subcontinent. She said that there was a faction of writers whose writing reflects a sort of exile, an estrangement in a new place that never really faded.
Another faction is of the "expatriation" sort, in which the authors accept their new location, but engage in romantic nostalgia in reflection on their old home.
The final group of authors, in which Mukherjee claimed membership, was the "immigrant" type, in which the authors principally immerse themselves in their new country and write about their experiences there.