Author Mukherjee to speak in Transnational Encounters series

12:25 p.m., Sept. 13, 2012--Acclaimed author Bharati Mukherjee will be presented in a reading and interview at 5 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 3, in the Gore Recital Hall of the Roselle Center for the Arts on the University of Delaware campus in Newark.

The event is part of UD’s Transnational Encounters visiting writers series.

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June 6-9: Food and culture series

The 20th annual June Lecture Series at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UD in Wilmington will be held June 6-9. Titled 'June a la Carte,' this year's program focuses on great political documents, feminism, world politics and a Newark cuisine sampler.

• June 6-9: Food and culture series
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• Through Sept. 16: Women of color in academia

Mukherjee has established herself as a powerful member of the American literary scene, one whose most memorable works reflect her pride in her Indian heritage, but also her celebration of immigrant life in America.

Born in Kolkata to a close-knit Hindu Brahmin family, Mukherjee acquired her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English in India before joining the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop in 1961.

She planned to earn her master of fine arts degree then return to India to marry a bridegroom of her father’s choosing. Instead, while at Iowa, Mukherjee married the Canadian writer Clark Blaise.

After completing a doctorate in English and comparative literature from the University of Iowa, she lived in Canada with her husband for 14 years before relocating to the U.S. in 1980, settling eventually at the University of California Berkeley.

Known for her understated prose style and depictions of immigrants, particularly women, in North America, Mukherjee has published in a variety of genres, including short stories, novels, nonfiction, and memoir.

Her collection The Middleman and Other Stories was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1988. 

On Oct. 3, Mukherjee will be reading from her most recent novel, Miss New India, published in 2011.

A reception and book signing will follow the reading in the lobby of the Roselle Center for the Arts.

This event in the Transnational Encounters series is sponsored by a cornerstone grant from the College of Arts and Science's Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center (IHRC), and the Department of English. For more information about the Transnational Encounters series, see the IHRC website.

For a flyer about the reading in PDF format, click here.

For a complete list of events at UD, see the @UD calendar.

Photo by Chip Cooper