Bharati Mukherjee was born on July 27, 1940, in Calcutta, India. Her father, a chemist, was the head of a pharmaceutical firm, and Mukherjee was raised in an upper-middle-class Brahmin Bengali family. She received a privileged education, attending schools in Britain and Switzerland as well as in India. In 1959, she earned a B.A. in English from the University of Calcutta. In 1961, she earned an M.A. in English and ancient Indian culture, also from the University of Calcutta. In 1961, Mukherjee went to the United States to participate in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she met Canadian writer Clark Blaise, whom she married in 1963. In 1963, Mukherjee also earned an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. She held several teaching posts in universities in the United States, including Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1964- 64), and the University of Wisconsin (1965). She moved with her husband to Canada in...