The news that Meenakshi Mukherjee is no more is quite a shock... A colleague who was the very definition of collegiality, a major intellect who came to define the JNU Center for English, a well-wisher, and friend...
She taught at a number of places in India- Patna, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, and at the Jawaharlal Nehru University- as well as at several universities outside India- UT Austin, Chicago, Berkeley, Macquarie, Canberra, and Flinders. And her scholarship was formidable- the number of books she wrote or edited bear testimony to that. She also played a major role in nurturing what has become known as Indian Writing in English, be it by encouraging authors and poets, or through her own writing, in a series of remarkable critical essays, many of which have been collected in different volumes.
She received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2003 for her book The Perishable Empire: Essays On Indian Writing In English. Her other books include
She taught at a number of places in India- Patna, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, and at the Jawaharlal Nehru University- as well as at several universities outside India- UT Austin, Chicago, Berkeley, Macquarie, Canberra, and Flinders. And her scholarship was formidable- the number of books she wrote or edited bear testimony to that. She also played a major role in nurturing what has become known as Indian Writing in English, be it by encouraging authors and poets, or through her own writing, in a series of remarkable critical essays, many of which have been collected in different volumes.
She received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2003 for her book The Perishable Empire: Essays On Indian Writing In English. Her other books include
- The Twice Born Fiction (1971, reprinted in 2001)
- Realism and Reality: Novel and Society in India (1985, paperback 1992)
- Re-reading Jane Austen (1994)
- The Perishable Empire (2000, paperback 2002).
- Considerations: Twelve Studies of Indian Literature in English (1977),
- Midnight's Children: A Book of Readings (1999), and
- Early Novels in India (2002)
- Another India (jointly with Nissim Ezekiel, 1990).
Her most recent books include the edited volume, Nation in Imagination Essays on Nationalism, Sub-Nationalisms and Narration, of the papers presented at the 13th Triennial conference of the Association of Commonwealth Literature and 
Language Studies (ACLALS), held in 2004 in Hyderabad, and Elusive Terrain: Culture and Literary Memory a collection of thirteen essays that examine the various strands that exist in the tangled texture of our plural existence—language, translation, religion, politics, gender, caste, community, films, migration, and nostalgia for a lost home.
And An Indian for all Seasons: The many Lives of R.C. Dutt, just published by Penguin, which, like all her work, is "meticulously researched and elegantly written".
A scholar who will be missed. For her intellectual enthusiasm, for her kindness, for her insight. But most, because she made that difference.
Language Studies (ACLALS), held in 2004 in Hyderabad, and Elusive Terrain: Culture and Literary Memory a collection of thirteen essays that examine the various strands that exist in the tangled texture of our plural existence—language, translation, religion, politics, gender, caste, community, films, migration, and nostalgia for a lost home. And An Indian for all Seasons: The many Lives of R.C. Dutt, just published by Penguin, which, like all her work, is "meticulously researched and elegantly written".
A scholar who will be missed. For her intellectual enthusiasm, for her kindness, for her insight. But most, because she made that difference.
2 comments:
In her list of publications, one of her more important books is always left out because it is in Bengali. It would remain a landmark in Bengali-language literary criticism and she was personally very attached to this book. It is called 'Upanshye Atit: Itihash o Kalpoitihash' [The Past in the Novel: History and Imagined History], Thema, Calcutta, 2003.
I knew Meenakshi and Sujit Mukherjee at the University of Pennsylvania in the earlier 1960s. I am sad to hear of her sudden demise. I am sure she had more books to write, being a questing spirit.
I am glad to have corresponded with her a few years back.
Candadai Tirumalai
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