In the following review of Mukherjee's novel Jasmine, Eleanor Wachtel describes the life journey of a Punjabi woman, Jyoti, as circumstance moves her through varying geographical locations and personalities, and calls Mukherjee's depiction of clashing cultures and philosophies as narrated by Jyoti, or Jasmine, as "powerful", "ambitious" and "impressively compact."

In Bharati Mukherjee's new novel, the inhabitants of Hasnapur, a fictional village in India's Punjab state, dream of better lives in richer lands. As a girl, the title character of Jasmine listens with fascination as the men around her debate over which countries would be best for making a new start. Her brothers talk of well-paid jobs in the United Arab Emirates. But Prakash, their friend—and Jasmine's future husband—says that guest workers there are mere slaves, even if they are rich ones. He insists that the place to go is the United States. "When I...