Jasmine (novel)
Encyclopedia
Jasmine is a novel by Bharati Mukherjee
Bharati Mukherjee
Bharati Mukherjee is an award-winning Indian-born American writer. She is currently a professor in the department of English at the University of California, Berkeley.-Background:...

 set in the present about a young India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n woman in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 who, trying to adapt to the American way of life in order to be able to survive, changes identities several times.

Synopsis

The main backdrop of Jasmine, which was based on an earlier short story in The Middleman and Other Stories, is the mixing of the East and West through the story telling of a seventeen-year-old Hindu woman who leaves India for the U.S. after her husband's murder. Her husband dies due to a religious attack in India. In her path she faces many problems including rape and eventually returned to the position of a health professional through a series of jobs. Here in this context the unity between the First and Third world is shown to be in the treatment of women as subordinate in both countries. The story expanded as a story of a young widow suddenly widowed at seventeen. She uproots herself from her life in India and re-roots herself in search of a new life and the image of America as well. It is a story of dislocation and relocation as the protagonist continually sheds lives to move into other roles, moving further westward. The author in some parts of this novel shows some agony to the third world as she shows that Jasmine needs to travel to America to make something significant in her life. And in the third world she faced only despair and loss.

Further reading

  • T. C. Boyle's novel The Tortilla Curtain
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    (1995
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    ) is about a Mexican
    Mexico
    The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

     couple living illegally in California
    California
    California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

     and getting into trouble.
  • Julia Álvarez
    Julia Álvarez
    Julia Alvarez is a Dominican-American poet, novelist, and essayist. Born in New York of Dominican descent, she spent the first ten years of her childhood in the Dominican Republic, until her father's involvement in a political rebellion forced her family to flee the country.Alvarez rose to...

    's novel How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
    How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
    How the García Girls Lost Their Accents is a 1991 novel written by Dominican-American poet, novelist, and essayist Julia Alvarez. Told in reverse chronological order and narrated from shifting perspectives, the text possesses distinct qualities of a bildungsroman novel...

    (1992
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    The year 1992 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Ben Aaronovitch - Transit*Julia Álvarez - How the García Girls Lost Their Accents*Paul Auster - Leviathan*Iain Banks - The Crow Road...

    ) tells the story of a wealthy Dominican
    Dominican Republic
    The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...

     family fleeing their troubled country and starting a new life in New York City.
  • See Heroines in literature for a list of female protagonist
    Protagonist
    A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

    s.

Book information

Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee
Bharati Mukherjee
Bharati Mukherjee is an award-winning Indian-born American writer. She is currently a professor in the department of English at the University of California, Berkeley.-Background:...

  • Hardcover
    Hardcover
    A hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...

     – ISBN 0-8021-1032-0 (ISBN 978-0-8021-1032-9) published in September 1989 by Grove Press
    Grove Press
    Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its...

  • Paperback
    Paperback
    Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...

     – ISBN 0-4492-1923-2 (ISBN 978-0-4492-1923-2) published on December 25, 1990 by Fawcett Publications
    Fawcett Publications
    Fawcett Publications was an American publishing company founded in 1919 in Robbinsdale, Minnesota by Wilford Hamilton "Captain Billy" Fawcett . At the age of 16, Fawcett ran away from home to join the Army, and the Spanish-American War took him to the Philippines. Back in Minnesota, he became a...

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