A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
ONE OF TIME' S "30 BOOKS TO READ BEFORE YOU'RE 30"
"Mukherjee gives us the gift of being allowed to see ourselves in all
our inconsistencies . . . To build our hearts so they might always
reflect, like Jasmine, what it means to carry what is fraught and scared
and dismissive and hopeful and wild inside us, and choose love." --Mira
Jacob, from the new introduction
When Jasmine was first published the New York Times called it "one of
the most suggestive novels we have about what it is to become an
American." Thirty years later, Jasmine has only grown in its
significance. Following one woman through her numerous identities --
from Jyoti in a small village in Punjab, to Jasmine in Jalandhar, to
Jase in Manhattan, to Jane in Iowa -- Mukherjee gives us an iconic
character whose journey through shifting landscapes necessitates her
shifting selves. What she encounters on this path, from India to America
and from girlhood to womanhood, shows the beauty and darkness and
revelation inherent in the journeys of all those who not only want to
survive, but to grow.
With a new introduction by Mira Jacob for this thirtieth-anniversary
edition, Jasmine is a masterful examination of identity, immigration,
and sexuality from the "Matriarch of Indian-American literature."
(Literary Hub)
