SOURCE: “Americanness of the Immigrants in The Middleman and Other Stories,” in The Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee: A Critical Symposium, Prestige Books, 1996, pp. 130-36.

In the following essay, Chandra rejects Mukherjee's appraisal of The Middleman and Other Stories as being tales about the “transformation” of immigrants and United States citizens as the two cultures collide, and argues instead that the collection echoes post-World War II fiction in which violence and loveless sex become manifestations of American fear and isolation.

Bharati Mukherjee, born in Calcutta in 1940, went to the USA in 1961, to Canada in 1968, became a Canadian citizen in 1972, returned to the USA in 1980 and became a permanent citizen of the United States the same year. Her writing career began in 1971 with Tiger's Daughter. However, she got recognition as a writer with The Middleman and Other Stories, which bagged the 1988 National Book Critics Award in America. This collection seeks...