Miss New India: Summary and book reviews of Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee, plus links to an excerpt from Miss New India and a biography of Bharati Mukherjee.
Miss New India A Novel
by Bharati Mukherjee
Hardcover: May 2011,
336 pages.
Paperback: Jun 2012,
336 pages.
Anjali Bose is "Miss New India." Born into a traditional lower-middle-class family and living in a backwater town with an arranged marriage on the horizon, Anjali's prospects don't look great. But her ambition and fluency in language do not go unnoticed by her expat teacher, Peter Champion. And champion her he does, both to other powerful people who can help her along the way and to Anjali herself, stirring in her a desire to take charge of her own destiny.
So she sets off to Bangalore, India's fastest-growing major metropolis, and quickly falls in with an audacious and ambitious crowd of young people, who have learned how to sound American by watching shows like Seinfeld in order to get jobs as call-center service agents, where they are quickly able to out-earn their parents. And it is in this high-tech city where Anjali - suddenly free from the traditional confines of class, caste, gender, and more - is able to confront her past and reinvent herself. Of course, the seductive pull of modernity does not come without a dark side...
Although Mukherjee's work begins with the familiar plot of a daughter who is not enthused by her parents' decisions about her future, the author is careful not to allow generational differences to serve as simple catalysts for trouble. (Reviewed by Karen Rigby).
Publishers Weekly
This is a curiously unfulfilling book, as Angie drifts into events and out of them, never quite taking charge of her destiny.
Kirkus Reviews
A tightly woven narrative about naïveté and personal growth in contemporary India... Mukherjee explores Anjali's issues with understanding and sympathy.
Booklist
Starred Review. Each character fascinates, and every detail glints with irony and intent, as Mukherjee brilliantly choreographs her compelling protagonist's struggles against betrayal, violence, and corruption in a dazzling plot.
Library Journal
Starred Review. With its fast-paced story and sympathetic portrayal of a young woman trying to make it on her own against all odds, this novel is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary Indian and Indian American fiction. Highly recommended.
Amy Tan
Enchanting! Mukherjee's pitch-perfect ear for character and mood and her story-telling gifts capture the exhilarating restlessness of a young Indian woman's pursuit of happiness. Miss New India illuminates as brilliantly as it entertains.
Situated on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern Indian state of Karnataka (aka Mysore), of which it is the capital, Bengaluru sits approximately 940 meters above sea level, and is one of India's largest and fastest growing cities.
Legend suggests that Bengaluru was named after King Veera Ballala of the Vijayanagara Kingdom (14th century), who, lost on his travels, was given a meal of beans by a charitable elderly woman. He named the town "bende kaalu ooru" (town of boiled beans), which then became known as Bengaluru. However, the word "BengaLooru" is documented as having been used long before King Veera Ballala's time and can be found on an inscription on a 9th century temple in the village of Begur, rendering the legend rather unlikely.
Modern Bengaluru originated as a mud fort built by Kempe Gowda, a feudal lord, in 1537 when he decided to create a capital...
A mesmerizing book that illuminates the remarkable ways in which traditional forms of religious life in India have been transformed in the vortex of the region’s rapid change.
Set in India's railway colonies, this is a wise and compassionate novel about family, memory, and the traditions that tear us apart and bring us together.
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A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
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Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
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Amy Tan
Legend suggests that Bengaluru was named after King Veera Ballala of the Vijayanagara Kingdom (14th century), who, lost on his travels, was given a meal of beans by a charitable elderly woman. He named the town "bende kaalu ooru" (town of boiled beans), which then became known as Bengaluru. However, the word "BengaLooru" is documented as having been used long before King Veera Ballala's time and can be found on an inscription on a 9th century temple in the village of Begur, rendering the legend rather unlikely. 
