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Nandini Bhattacharya was born and raised in India and has called the United States her second continent for the last thirty years. Wherever she has lived, she has generally turned to books for the answers to life's questions, big or small (that includes philosophy and recipes).
Her first novel Love's Garden was published in October 2020.
Her work has been published or will be in Notre Dame Review, Oyster River Pages, PANK, Sky Island Journal, Saturday Evening Post Best Short Stories, Good Cop/Bad Cop Anthology (Flowersong Press), Gardan Anthology of the Craigardan Artists Residency, Funny Pearls, Bombay Review, Meat for Tea: the Valley Review, Storyscape Journal, Raising Mothers, Bangalore Review, and more. She has attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Workshop and been accepted for residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, VONA, Centrum Writer's Residency, and the Ragdale Artist's Residency, among others. Her awards include first runner-up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction contest, a finalist for the Fourth River Folio Contest for Prose Prize, long-listed for the Disquiet International Literary Prize, a finalist for the Reynolds-Price International Women's Literary Award, and Honorable Mention for the Saturday Evening Post Great American Stories Contest.
She has finished Homeland Blues, a second novel, about love, caste, colorism and violent religious fundamentalism in India, and racism and xenophobia in post-Donald Trump America. She is now at work on a third novel.
Her favorite authors include Jhumpa Lahiri, Toni Morrison, Barbara Kingsolver, Danya Kukafka, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Salman Rushdie, Jose Saramago, Chimamanda Adichie and Voltaire.
She is Professor of English at Texas A&M University. Her fields of expertise are Creative Writing, Postcolonial Studies and Colonial Discourse Analysis, World Literatures, South Asia Studies and Indian Cinema, Women's and Gender Studies, Film, Diaspora, Migrations and Exiles, Travel writing, and Affect Theory. She has published three scholarly books on these subjects, the latest being Hindi Cinema: Repeating the Subject (Routledge 2012).
My novel Love's Garden (2020), now available at your favorite bookseller's
Love's Garden, a multi-generational story of Indian women living through a century of war and decolonization, and available to pre-order at Amazon.com, Aubade Publishing, Amazon.in, Flipkart.in among other retailers.
Reviewers hail it as "wonderfully dense and wise," "gripping," and "a journey into India's complex past" and 'what women will do to protect those they love" -- an epic saga of Indian women living through a century of war and decolonization
Dear Friends, Readers...
I was born and raised in India and have called the United States my second continent for the last thirty years. Wherever I've lived, I've generally turned to books for the answers to life's questions, big or small (that includes philosophy and recipes).
My first novel Love's Garden was published in October 2020.
My work has been published or will be in Oyster River Pages, PANK, Sky Island Journal, the Saturday Evening Post Best Short Stories from the Great American Fiction Contest Anthology 2021, the Good Cop/Bad Cop Anthology (Flowersong Press, 2021), the Gardan Anthology of the Craigardan Artists Residency, Funny Pearls, The Bombay Review, Meat for Tea: the Valley Review, Storyscape Journal, Raising Mothers, The Bangalore Review, OyeDrum, and more. I have attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Workshop and been accepted for residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, VONA, Centrum Writer's Residency, and the Ragdale Artist's Residency (forthcoming), among others. My awards include first runner-up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction contest (2017-2018), a finalist for the Fourth River Folio Contest for Prose Prize (2018), long-listed for the Disquiet International Literary Prize (2019 and 2020), a finalist for the Reynolds-Price International Women's Literary Award (2019), and Honorable Mention for the Saturday Evening Post Great American Stories Contest, 2021.
I'm currently working on Homeland Blues, my second novel, about love, caste, colorism and violent religious fundamentalism in India, and racism and xenophobia in post-Donald Trump America.
My favorite authors include Jhumpa Lahiri, Toni Morrison, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Salman Rushdie, Jose Saramago, Chimamanda Adichie and Voltaire.
I'm also a Professor of English at Texas A&M University. My fields of scholarly expertise are South Asia Studies, Indian Cinema, Postcolonial Studies and Colonial Discourse Analysis, Women's Studies, and Creative Writing. I have published three scholarly books on these subjects, the latest being Hindi Cinema: Repeating the Subject (Routledge 2012)., Chimamanda Adichie. I live outside Houston and serve a marmalade cat.
Visit me at:
Amazon author page; Twitter; Instagram; personal Facebook; Blog; YouTube; Linkedin, and Goodreads
Readings and Events:
Invited Reading at Lit Balm: an Interactive Livestream Reading Series, February 27, 2021
Invited Workshop and Reading with a focus on Love's Garden at Dev Samaj College for Women, Panjab University, India, February 2, 2021
Featured Reading from Love's Garden in the Hidden Timber Book Reading Series, January 24, 2021
Featured Reading at Sacred Grounds Bookstore in San Francisco, January 13, 2021
Reading at the KGB Bar, New York City, Nov 15, 2020
Readings and Conversations on Youtube
Podcasts:
Desi Books Episode 21
Interviews:
Author's Guild Author Spotlight