The author of six highly praised novels, two collections of short stories, and a smattering of nonfiction works, Bharati Mukherjee reflects her personal experiences in crossing cultural boundaries in her writings. In novels such as Jasmine, The Tiger's Daughter, The Holder of the World, Leave It to Me, and Desirable Daughters, as well as in her award-winning short stories, Indian-born Mukherjee "adds to the authority of her [multicultural] background an acute sense of the violence and chaos, however restrained, which can lie beneath the surface of a society, old or new, or of a person," explained Ann Mandel in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. A "request for recognition--the desire to be `visible' . . . to be recognized as person rather than as ethnic stereotype--characterizes much of Mukherjee's writing," Mandel added. "Her characters sometimes cry out to be seen for who they really are; and sometimes, weak or tired, they surrender...