The Literariness of Life
Undecidability in Bharati Mukherjee's Writing
Bharati Mukherjee's oeuvre has been discussed predominantly within the context of postcolonialism. The Literariness of Life takes a different perspective: It examines how the U.S. American writer translates general textual openess into concrete works of literature, be it through her creative use of fictional autobiography in Jasmine and Leave It to Me, or by corroding chronology throughout her most recent trilogy (Desirable Daughters, The Tree Bride, Miss New India).
The Literariness of Life demonstrates how Mukherjee's stories of immigration renegotiate the mechanisms of human relations from a universal angle – marked and informed by existential ›undecidability‹. This study is guided by the thinking of Jacques Derrida, albeit without offering deconstructive interpretations. Its investigation of Mukherjee's work steers away from a content-dominated reading practice and encourages the reader to embrace aesthetic questions as themselves political. In this way, The Literariness of Life moves Bharati Mukherjee's writing out of the corner of ethnic minority literature.