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The Tiger's Daughter
A compelling novel of people and cultures in collision. 'The theme of adjusting to a new culture, the trials, tribulations and traumas that afflict immigrants trying to make it into the new world have been deftly handled... With a combination of malice and charm, irony and sympathy, Mukherjee describes how Tara is pushed to the edges of her old world yet exiled from the new, and how she tries vainly to reconcile the two worlds in her heart.' --The Tribune
210 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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About the author
Bharati Mukherjee
47 books228 followersBharati Mukherjee was an Indian-born award winning American writer who explored the internal culture clashes of her immigrant characters in the award-winning collection The Middleman and Other Stories and in novels like Jasmine and Desirable Daughters.
Ms. Mukherjee, a native of Calcutta, attended schools in England, Switzerland and India, earned advanced degrees in creative writing in the United States and lived for more than a decade in Canada, affording her a wealth of experience in the modern realities of multiculturalism.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Calcutta in 1959 and a master’s degree from the University of Baroda, in Gujarat, in 1961. After sending six handwritten stories to the University of Iowa, she was accepted into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she studied with Philip Roth and Vance Bourjaily in her first year. She earned an M.F.A. in 1963 and a doctorate in comparative literature in 1969 at Iowa.
After years of short-term academic appointments, Ms. Mukherjee was hired in 1989 to teach postcolonial and world literature at the University of California, Berkeley.
Bharati Mukherjee died on Saturday, January 28, 2017 in Manhattan. She was 76.
Ms. Mukherjee, a native of Calcutta, attended schools in England, Switzerland and India, earned advanced degrees in creative writing in the United States and lived for more than a decade in Canada, affording her a wealth of experience in the modern realities of multiculturalism.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Calcutta in 1959 and a master’s degree from the University of Baroda, in Gujarat, in 1961. After sending six handwritten stories to the University of Iowa, she was accepted into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she studied with Philip Roth and Vance Bourjaily in her first year. She earned an M.F.A. in 1963 and a doctorate in comparative literature in 1969 at Iowa.
After years of short-term academic appointments, Ms. Mukherjee was hired in 1989 to teach postcolonial and world literature at the University of California, Berkeley.
Bharati Mukherjee died on Saturday, January 28, 2017 in Manhattan. She was 76.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
April 6, 2021
In certain ways, this could be seen as the successor to the history of India recounted in Nectar in a Sieve: the creeping industrialization of rural villages, the subsequent displacement of the former denizens of said villagers to living hand to mouth in the cities, the postcolonial landscape with its confusingly mixed messages between so-called "East" and "West" that, despite the differences, are equally capable of maintaining the same level of rampant disparity in wealth between the poor many and the rich few. Here, the displacement has occurred en masse with thousands, and those who have ridden out the changes that independence brought and managed to stay on top have almost fully imbibed the best of what its former colonial masters had to offer: bigotry, self-centeredness, and incipient fascism in reaction to those whose homes, cultures, and selves are being bulldozed over for the sake of a future that leaves them nowhere else to go. Despite that historical backdrop being the origin of the uneasy tone of violence that colors the borders of this narrative, this is no political novel, or even one oriented around any sort of polemic. Rather, this piece skims the surface of the lives of the upper middle class in a mildly castigating way that seems to make the piece out as more satire than anything else, least up until the very end when the compassion waterworks are turned on full blast and things suddenly become very serious and very tragic. Such made for an oddly put together work that would have been much stronger, in my opinion, if it had gone full force satirical, but this was Mukherjee's first work, and one must must cut some slack in such cases.
This is a piece that does its best to navigate between the apathetic luxuries of the members of the Anglicized Bengali upper middle class and abject communities fomenting revolutionary upheaval just outside their door. It does not analyze the origin of the riots that threaten the edges of the glib paradise of the Bengali bourgeoisie of the mid 20th century that it focuses on, but neither does it offer a particularly sympathetic window into the lifestyle of those who can afford to be more complacent in their survival. Indeed, there's not much of an emotional tinge in general, and the majority of the characters come off as variously styled clowns, needling at and conniving against and aggravating each other in general over intercultural marriage, burgeoning ethnic diversity in the higher echelons of society, the incongruously fitting yet still fondly treated remnants of British imperialism, and, above all, what to do in a landscape where what goes around, comes around in a manner less moderated by the military industrial complexes and/or police states that "first world" countries are equipped with. The main character, the purported daughter in the title is, in a word, hapless, and it is her 'woe-is-me' cross-cultural fumbling that drives the work forward, until a quick succession of traumas, a violent interpersonal assault quickly followed by a far more populated and devastating social upheaval that cuts off without granting much final resolution to any of the characters caught up in the scenario. Such a serious conclusion seems to preclude satire, or perhaps that was this work's way of truly driving the whole critique home. In any case, there were some truly deft bits, especially whenever an erstwhile US native (one Black, one white) inserted themselves into the narrative's path and spawned uproariously hysterical responses amongst the oh so politely yet blithely yet viciously ethnocentric Bengali community that is forced to host them. The knife just wasn't driven firmly enough for me to comfortably conclude one way or another, so I'll be leaving my musings at that.
I picked up a copy of this as part of a marvelously large load of South Asian literature that I was able to acquire secondhand for a veritable song due to the odd circumstances that the ongoing pandemic has forced local library sales into. Upon seeing its year of publication, I included it as a much needed burst of representative of literature by women of color in my challenge reading plans for this year (balancing my desire to get through long neglected works with maintaining diverse reading takes some forceful acrobatics at times), and here we are. This isn't Mukherjee's most well known work, but even Jasmine isn't spared the seeming unending litany of poor average ratings across the board, and knowing what I do about writing by women of color, I have to wonder if this is a result of credible evaluation, or just the kind of bias that is almost always inherently linked with the unwillingness to properly pronounce the author's name. In any case, I myself wasn't inspired in any admirable way to pick up one of her works, and my own rating does more to decrease the average than anything else. However, while I can't love everything I read, I can recognize when to give certain things a chance, and if another work of Mukherjee's came across my path under equally affordable circumstances, I wouldn't hesitate to acquire it. There is a certain disdain towards any kind of over the top glorification of false idols and self-absorbed quests of the rich and bored, regardless of ethnicity, running through this piece that I'm a particular fan of: to read something where Mukherjee has fully honed this craft would be a treat indeed.
This is a piece that does its best to navigate between the apathetic luxuries of the members of the Anglicized Bengali upper middle class and abject communities fomenting revolutionary upheaval just outside their door. It does not analyze the origin of the riots that threaten the edges of the glib paradise of the Bengali bourgeoisie of the mid 20th century that it focuses on, but neither does it offer a particularly sympathetic window into the lifestyle of those who can afford to be more complacent in their survival. Indeed, there's not much of an emotional tinge in general, and the majority of the characters come off as variously styled clowns, needling at and conniving against and aggravating each other in general over intercultural marriage, burgeoning ethnic diversity in the higher echelons of society, the incongruously fitting yet still fondly treated remnants of British imperialism, and, above all, what to do in a landscape where what goes around, comes around in a manner less moderated by the military industrial complexes and/or police states that "first world" countries are equipped with. The main character, the purported daughter in the title is, in a word, hapless, and it is her 'woe-is-me' cross-cultural fumbling that drives the work forward, until a quick succession of traumas, a violent interpersonal assault quickly followed by a far more populated and devastating social upheaval that cuts off without granting much final resolution to any of the characters caught up in the scenario. Such a serious conclusion seems to preclude satire, or perhaps that was this work's way of truly driving the whole critique home. In any case, there were some truly deft bits, especially whenever an erstwhile US native (one Black, one white) inserted themselves into the narrative's path and spawned uproariously hysterical responses amongst the oh so politely yet blithely yet viciously ethnocentric Bengali community that is forced to host them. The knife just wasn't driven firmly enough for me to comfortably conclude one way or another, so I'll be leaving my musings at that.
I picked up a copy of this as part of a marvelously large load of South Asian literature that I was able to acquire secondhand for a veritable song due to the odd circumstances that the ongoing pandemic has forced local library sales into. Upon seeing its year of publication, I included it as a much needed burst of representative of literature by women of color in my challenge reading plans for this year (balancing my desire to get through long neglected works with maintaining diverse reading takes some forceful acrobatics at times), and here we are. This isn't Mukherjee's most well known work, but even Jasmine isn't spared the seeming unending litany of poor average ratings across the board, and knowing what I do about writing by women of color, I have to wonder if this is a result of credible evaluation, or just the kind of bias that is almost always inherently linked with the unwillingness to properly pronounce the author's name. In any case, I myself wasn't inspired in any admirable way to pick up one of her works, and my own rating does more to decrease the average than anything else. However, while I can't love everything I read, I can recognize when to give certain things a chance, and if another work of Mukherjee's came across my path under equally affordable circumstances, I wouldn't hesitate to acquire it. There is a certain disdain towards any kind of over the top glorification of false idols and self-absorbed quests of the rich and bored, regardless of ethnicity, running through this piece that I'm a particular fan of: to read something where Mukherjee has fully honed this craft would be a treat indeed.
But emancipation was suspicious — it presupposed bondage.
February 3, 2021
It feels good to be DONE with this book! Much like the last book I read, it wasn't very interesting, but not for the same reasons as that last book. In "The Tiger's Daughter", I would say the most interesting part is probably the beginning, when the protagonist, Tara, is in America and about to travel back home to India. Once she's in India, the story goes very slowly, and maybe that's intentional. It felt like it didn't really have a point. Tara comes from a wealthy family and so spends her days just hanging out with her old friends and doing a lot of.... nothing? I don't know, maybe this accurately reflects the lives of the wealthy in India. Or at least at the time of this story.
For some reason, I had assumed it was present day, but then why does she leave her American husband back in the US and they communicate only via extremely slow, unreliable aerograms? (Side note: I feel I remember seeing aerograms in my childhood, a trifold blue paper that turns into its own envelope. I could be totally wrong.) And then at some point in the book, Tara's mother, Arati says something about loving the US so much that she wishes India woud become the 49th US state. I though, uhh, right now we're trying to make DC our 51st state, so something is a little off. And then I checked the copyright and the book is from 1971. It's older than me! Ok, so I guess the story takes place in the 1950s, perhaps?
Anyways, the last couple of pages (literally, the last two or three) are action-packed, stuff is happening, and then.... it just ends. And I'm left, not exactly hanging, but just rolling my eyes that the ending wasn't much of an ending. I would not recommend this book. It is going to a Little Free Library to find a new home!
For some reason, I had assumed it was present day, but then why does she leave her American husband back in the US and they communicate only via extremely slow, unreliable aerograms? (Side note: I feel I remember seeing aerograms in my childhood, a trifold blue paper that turns into its own envelope. I could be totally wrong.) And then at some point in the book, Tara's mother, Arati says something about loving the US so much that she wishes India woud become the 49th US state. I though, uhh, right now we're trying to make DC our 51st state, so something is a little off. And then I checked the copyright and the book is from 1971. It's older than me! Ok, so I guess the story takes place in the 1950s, perhaps?
Anyways, the last couple of pages (literally, the last two or three) are action-packed, stuff is happening, and then.... it just ends. And I'm left, not exactly hanging, but just rolling my eyes that the ending wasn't much of an ending. I would not recommend this book. It is going to a Little Free Library to find a new home!
March 11, 2009
This thoroughly engrossing look at Indian and American culture is a book not to be missed by anyone. I picked it up at the library because it looked interesting...and it was! Ms. Mukherjee weaves a fascinating tale of a young Indian girl who attends college in the United States, returns to visit her family in India. The India of her childhood is long gone; replaced with a turbulent, bloody India of the 20th century; an India on the brink of revolution. While in India, she visits family and old friends, and is drawn into the world of India. The author does an excellent job of describing in vivid detail, the culture of India, as well as provide glimpses into the main character's life in America. I highly recommend this book. It's the proverbial diamond in the rough; awaiting to be discovered, so that it can be cherished for generations to come.
January 7, 2012
I read this several years ago and am putting it in my Goodreads now as one of my memorable books. The Tiger's Daughter is a bit of a Victorian set-piece in structure in that through the situations of the main character, we understand the bigger picture of her culture. I really admired this book and learned a lot from it as a writer (and was unfortunately totally disappointed by everything else I have read by this author).
August 16, 2007
I read threw this book in like two days. It's such a wonderful journay of a women really finding herself through some awful circumstances. The book was really about going home when home has totally changed.
June 17, 2011
I am not entirely sure what the point of the book was. This book struck me as overly intellectual. For me it was an in-essence-we-are-really-eating-ourselves moment. Not a good thing. But it wasn't a horrible book.
September 18, 2025
Read this a while back but it’s been in my head lately for no particular reason whatsoever. I recall not particularly liking the book at the time because it was so grim (ennui, alienation, sexual assault, culminating in murder) but that same quality made it leave an indelible mark on me. Life is indeed nasty, brutish, and short for the immigrant woman who tasted freedom abroad but got trapped in her country of origin.
April 29, 2025
Tara, an Indian woman living in NYC, goes back home to visit family, and is thrust in a world she def doesn't belong to anymore - but she is not a tourist. The contrast, the struggle between the country, as chaos and protests and riots fill the streets, is about Tara realizing a bit more about what India really is, and who she is.
March 12, 2019
The novel is mostly on simmer until the trip to Darjeeling and the violent aftermath. That's what makes it worth reading.
September 12, 2022
The claustrophobic atmosphere and the descriptions of the stifling heat are likely to make readers feel as much malaise as the protagonist. There is no personal growth and no real plot.
July 6, 2023
A pretty terrifying fictional account of Calcutta during a revolution.
May 21, 2024
A rather dull story with an uninspiring protagonist who is foreign in her own home (in Calcutta) after living abroad (New York )
October 28, 2011
Difficult to follow but learned a lot of what might be opinions of young adults of India.
When the main character goes to university in USA then marries an American without approval from her parents, her friends and family feel she has been ruined and too westernized. When she goes back to the place she grew up in India and gets together with her child hood friends again who have never left India, she sees how much American thought has influenced her. Her friends often do not include her in their activities.
Much violence, rioting and confusion having to do with the politics of Calcutta.
Others may like this book but I found it too confusing and depressing.
When the main character goes to university in USA then marries an American without approval from her parents, her friends and family feel she has been ruined and too westernized. When she goes back to the place she grew up in India and gets together with her child hood friends again who have never left India, she sees how much American thought has influenced her. Her friends often do not include her in their activities.
Much violence, rioting and confusion having to do with the politics of Calcutta.
Others may like this book but I found it too confusing and depressing.
February 25, 2022
Bleugh
April 8, 2017
A great work of Indian Modernism, this novel explores the problem of fitting into one's community once one becomes aware that there are other ways of looking at the world. Tara Banerjee was, at age 14, sent by her father (known principally as the Bengal Tiger) out of Calcutta (or Kolkata, as the city is now called) to study in the US. During her seven years there prior to events of the novel, Tara finds herself isolated and confused, unfamiliar with US culture, though slowly assimilating. She even marries an Anglo-American named David, despite the social class prejudice of her upper-crust family and friends, which continues in spite of the official abolition of the caste system. The bulk of the novel, however, deals with Tara's return to Calcutta and the distance she experiences from her friends--chic, cynical, socialites and business people alternating between outrage and amusement at the protesting and rioting of the workers and the poor for better conditions--and her family. She seeks meaning and connection, which are continually denied her as she finds herself continually the outsider of a world that was once hers.
One stylistically interesting component of this novel--though also a key element of Modernism--is the temporal play. The novel opens with a short description of the Catelli-Continental Hotel, a shabby Victorian building that passes for sophisticated in Tara's Calcutta, then immediately moves to the wedding and subsequent death of Hari Lal Banerjee, Tara's great grandfather. Throughout the novel, we shift back to Hari Lal, forward to the present, back to Tara's earlier years in the US, to the Victorian period, and back to the present. This kind of temporal shifting and memory play makes the novel structurally intriguing because it pulls together and finds commonality through a complex deployment of nostalgia.
One stylistically interesting component of this novel--though also a key element of Modernism--is the temporal play. The novel opens with a short description of the Catelli-Continental Hotel, a shabby Victorian building that passes for sophisticated in Tara's Calcutta, then immediately moves to the wedding and subsequent death of Hari Lal Banerjee, Tara's great grandfather. Throughout the novel, we shift back to Hari Lal, forward to the present, back to Tara's earlier years in the US, to the Victorian period, and back to the present. This kind of temporal shifting and memory play makes the novel structurally intriguing because it pulls together and finds commonality through a complex deployment of nostalgia.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews