Dullness Is A Kind Of Luxury.

Through My Fiction, I Make Mainstream Readers See The New Americans As Complex Human Beings, Not As Just The Other.

In Traditional Hindu Families Like Ours, Men Provided And Women Were Provided For. My Father Was A Patriarch And I A Pliant Daughter. The Neighborhood I'd Grown Up In Was Homogeneously Hindu, Bengali-speaking, And Middle-class. I Didn't Expect Myself To Ever Disobey Or Disappoint My Father By Setting My Own Goals And Taking Charge Of My Future.

What Was The Duty Of The Teacher If Not To Inspire?

I Flew Into A Small Airport Surrounded By Cornfields And Pastures, Ready To Carry Out The Two Commands My Father Had Written Out For Me The Night Before I Left Calcutta: Spend Two Years Studying Creative Writing At The Iowa Writers Workshop, Then Come Back Home And Marry The Bridegroom He Selected For Me From Our Caste And Class.

[on Her Writing Agenda:] Make The Familiar Exotic; The Exotic Familiar.