Indian Womens Literature

Simran Mehta has always felt harshly judged by her mother, Nandini, especially when it comes to her little "writing hobby". But when a charismatic and highly respected journalist careens into Simran's life, she begins to question not only her future as a psychologist, but her engagement to her high-school sweetheart. Nandini Mehta has strived to create an easy life for her children in America. It isn’t until an old colleague makes her a life-changing offer that Nandini realizes she's spent so much time focusing on being the perfect Indian woman, she’s let herself slip away.

Vivid and compelling, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel. Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist—and confidante—to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own. Years later, she is confronted by her husband who has tracked her down.

Hi, I'm Radhika Mehta, and I'm getting married this week. I work at Goldman Sachs, an investment bank. Thank you for hearing my story. However, let me warn you. You may not like me too much. One, I make a lot of money. Two, I have an opinion on everything. Three, I have had a boyfriend before. Ok, maybe two. Best-selling author Chetan Bhagat, writing for the first time in a female voice, brings to you One Indian Girl, the heart-warming story of a modern Indian girl.

Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generations from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River Valley in Alaska, this is the suspenseful, shocking, ultimately inspirational tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine.

The nutritionist who taught us that simply eating (pun intended) is the key to a fab body is back with a comprehensive book on women, food and everything in between. From puberty to marriage, from pregnancy to menopause, Rujuta explains in detail the changes women go through (and, God knows, as Indian women, we go through way beyond those just hormonal - husband, in-laws, children, career, etc) and how what we do (or don't) during these phases affects our overall well-being.

Nothing prepares Jaya, a New York journalist, for the heartbreak of her third miscarriage and the slow unraveling of her marriage in its wake. Desperate to assuage her deep anguish, she decides to go to India to uncover answers to her family’s past. Intoxicated by the sights, smells, and sounds she experiences, Jaya becomes an eager student of the culture. But it is Ravi - her grandmother’s former servant and trusted confidant - who reveals the resilience, struggles, secret love, and tragic fall of Jaya’s pioneering grandmother during the British occupation.

Dr. Trisha Raje is San Francisco’s most acclaimed neurosurgeon. But that’s not enough for the Rajes, her influential immigrant family who’s achieved power by making its own nonnegotiable rules: Never trust an outsider, never do anything to jeopardize your brother’s political aspirations, and never, ever, defy your family. Trisha is guilty of breaking all three rules. But now, she has a chance to redeem herself. So long as she doesn’t repeat old mistakes.

An historian, who is convinced that the memoirs of 19th-century Shoshone heroine Sacajawea are stashed somewhere on the reservation, has disappeared.

1927: Accompanying Mr. Redvers on an assignment to Ootycamund to quell revolutionary rumblings, Jane finds there’s more than meets the eye to India’s Queen of Hill Stations. Ooty’s lush tea plantations and tranquil gardens barely conceal its secrets--scandalous affairs, political sabotage, and a mounting anti-colonial movement. Even Redvers intends to subvert his official mission in Ooty, by arranging a series of clandestine meetings with local resistance leaders. But it’s not until the shocking death of a British national that Jane and Redvers are truly drawn into Ooty’s deepest shadows.

The daughter of proud Napa Valley hoteliers, Asha “Poppy” Patel chose a different line as a Paris perfumer, gifted with a nose for fragrances and business. Until her heightened sense of smell disappears. Her career in jeopardy, her world now muted, Poppy returns home. Maybe tending to her grandmother’s massive aromatic garden, where Poppy’s gift first flowered, will bring restorative hope. But when she arrives, Poppy discovers that the land upon which the beautiful garden once thrived has been uprooted and destroyed.

Ayukta is finally sitting down with her wife Nadya to respond to a question she’s long avoided: Should they have a child? The decision is complicated by a secret her family has kept for centuries, one that Ayukta will be the first to share with someone outside their bloodline: the women in her family inherit a mysterious tapestry, through which each generation can experience the memories of those who came before her. Ayukta invites Nadya into this lineage, carrying her through its past.

Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. In the arc of one year, an unnamed narrator in an unnamed city, in the middle of her life’s journey, realizes that she’s lost her way. The city she calls home acts as a companion and interlocutor: traversing the streets around her house, and in parks, piazzas, museums, stores, and coffee bars, she feels less alone.

The residents of Alaska’s largest national park are stunned by the death of one of their oldest members, 87-year-old Old Sam Dementieff...even private investigator Kate Shugak. Sam, a lifelong resident, dubbed the “father” of all of the Park rats - even though he had no children of his own - was especially close to Kate, his niece, but even she is surprised to discover that in his will he’s left her everything, including a letter instructing her simply to, “find my father".

Inside Alaska's biggest national park, surrounding the town of Niniltna, a gold mining company has started buying up land. The residents of the Park, are uneasy. "But gold is up to nine hundred dollars an ounce," is the refrain of Talia Macleod, the popular Alaskan skiing champ the company hired to improve their relations with Alaskans. And she promises much needed jobs to the locals. But before she can make her way to every village in the area to make her case at town meetings and village breakfasts, there are two murders—one a long-standing mine opponent, and Ms. Macleod herself.

Marriage doesn’t just change your house and your roommate; it brings about a complete change. It is not simple accepting the new house, new family members and a new life partner. It takes a very big heart and lot of adjustments. Here are some chapters from the diary of a newlywed Indian woman and her journey, for a year, in her new house.

Jyoti is the “perfect” Indian American daughter: She stayed out of trouble, looked after her younger sisters, and married a man her parents approved of. So when her husband, Ashok, pushes her to quit her dream job as head chef to focus on conceiving, she obliges, knowing this will please her parents—only for Ashok to leave her when she cannot carry to term. Now unemployed, childless, and divorced, a disgrace to her Gujarati family, Jyoti books a ticket to Tuscany for the summer to visit her best friend (and fellow social outcast), Karishma.

Father John O'Malley discovers a frozen body on the Arapaho Reservation, a corpse that later disappears. O'Malley and Vicky Holden draw upon ancient traditions to stop the murderer.

Anita is over her life in New York: her dead-end job, tiny studio apartment, self-obsessed friends, and overbearing mom. So she moves west to Los Angeles in search of a new career, enlightenment, and that nebulous target...wellness. She discovers an elite workout class called the Goddess Effect, run by a lifestyle guru named Venus who’s the very definition of #goals. One look at her Lululemon-clad acolytes sweating out their demons while dripping with confidence and Anita’s all in.

Thomas McCabe is on his way to a brilliant career as a lawyer when, in 1837, he gives everything up to take a job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Sent to live with a tribe in the wilds of Missouri, McCabe soon saves the life of a young brave. Subsequently, yet grudgingly, he is accepted by the Cheyenne, until he falls hopelessly in love with the beautiful, and betrothed, Night Bird Woman. Determined to marry her, McCabe must prove himself to the tribe.

In Alaska, people disappear every day. In Aleut detective Kate Shugak's Park, they've been disappearing a lot lately. Hikers head into the wilderness unprepared and get lost. Miners quit without notice at the busy Suulutaq Mine. Suicides leave farewell notes and vanish. Not only are Park rats disappearing at an alarming rate, but so is life in the Park as Kate knows it.