Jasmine (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Bharati Mukherjee
- First Published: 1989
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The 1960’s to the late 1980’s
- Setting: India, Florida, New York, and Iowa
- Principal Characters: Jasmine (also Jyori Prakash And Jane Ripplemeyer), Bud Ripplemeyer, Karin Ripplemeyer, Du Thien, Prakash Vijh, Devinder Vadhera, Darrel Lutz, Taylor Hayes, Wylie Hayes, Half-face
- Genres: Long fiction, Bildungsroman
- Subjects: Freedom, 1960’s, 1970’s, Self-discovery, Caribbean, Midwest, American Dream, 1980’s, Asia or Asians, Immigration or emigration, Adultery, India or East Indian people, Servants, Ambition, Aliens, illegal, Refugees, Asian Americans, Parties
- Locales: New York, NY, Florida, Baden, IA, Hasnapur, India
“America keeps sending these ambiguous messages,” and Jane Ripplemeyer—also known as Jasmine and Jyoti Prakash—keeps trying to decipher them. So, through her, does the reader. The narrator of Jasmine, Bharati Mukherjee’s first book since The Middleman and Other Stories, which won the 1988 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, is, like her author, a newcomer to the United States. Immigrants from India, both gaze at this country through the kinds of eyes not commonly found in American literature.
Jane, in fact, believes herself endowed with special...
[The entire page is 2085 words long]
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