{"id":11377,"date":"2011-02-06T08:08:38","date_gmt":"2011-02-06T12:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=11377"},"modified":"2015-08-17T09:57:20","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T13:57:20","slug":"author-interview-anjali-banerjee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-interview-anjali-banerjee\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Interview: Anjali Banerjee [in Bookslut]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Anjali<\/a>With her past seven published novels \u2013 written for audiences that range from middle-grade readers on up \u2013 Anjali Banerjee didn\u2019t particularly mention male body parts in any great detail. Maybe a twinkling eye here, capable hands there, but she certainly didn\u2019t dwell. But as the saying goes, there\u2019s a first time for everything.<\/p>\n

Indeed, welcome to Haunting Jasmine<\/a><\/em>, Banerjee\u2019s eighth novel, her third for adults: Page one opens with an avid discussion on the fidelity factor of male genitalia based on ethnicity, complete with images of\u2026 well, shall we say\u2026 gold-embroidered formalwear for the faithful Bengali member. Five pages later, our betrayed heroine is not above asking the elephant god Ganesh to put a curse \u2013 \u00e0 la Lorena Bobbit \u2013 on her heartbreaking spouse\u2019s non-Bengali, all-American private parts. Oh, ouch.<\/p>\n

Painful initial details aside, Banerjee\u2019s latest is actually another easy-breezy, deftly entertaining love story, this time with spine-tingling twists. Searching for respite from her cheating soon-to-be-ex, the eponymous Jasmine heads home to remote Shelter Island in the Pacific Northwest where she\u2019s agreed to watch Auntie Ruma\u2019s bookstore for a month. Auntie Ruma needs the time to have her \u201cheart fixed in India,\u201d and only Jasmine can be entrusted to take care of the historic Victorian and the treasures \u2013 literary and otherwise \u2013 that reside within.<\/p>\n

Books and writing \u2013 and certainly some multi-culti magic \u2013 have always been a part of Banerjee\u2019s life. Born in India, and raised in small-town Canada and later big-city California, Banerjee found special inspiration in her literary maternal grandmother, herself an English writer who called India home.<\/p>\n

From the moment Banerjee \u201ccould pick up a crayon and scribble,\u201d she started writing. She wrote her first story at age seven, and in spite of \u201cpreposterous premises and impossible plots,\u201d she never stopped. While she\u2019s \u201cnot sure of a specific moment when I decided to become a writer\u201d \u2013 she did have a few career detours as a veterinary assistant, an office manager, a law student, to name a few \u2013 Banerjee readily acknowledges that \u201cwriting has always been part of who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since publishing her first title in 2005 \u2013 her lauded kiddie novel Maya Running<\/a><\/em>, about an awkward young Indian American girl who goes through a 13 Going on 30<\/em>-sort of transformation (sans the timely fast-forward) and becomes an assertive, multilingual beauty overnight \u2013 Banerjee has managed to publish more than a book a year. Even with five books for middle grade readers and three more for us oldsters, all out in just six years, Banerjee insists, \u201cI\u2019m not that prolific!\u201d<\/p>\n

In case you\u2019re about to set off for the library or local bookstore, you\u2019ll need the rest of Banerjee\u2019s titles: In addition to Maya<\/em>, her other younger-reader novels are Rani and the Fashion Divas<\/em>, The Silver Spell<\/a><\/em>, Looking for Bapu<\/em>, and most recently Seaglass Summer<\/a><\/em>; her adult titles before Haunting Jasmine<\/em> are Imaginary Men<\/a><\/em> and Invisible Lives<\/a><\/em> (with nary a mention in either about certain appendages. Ahem).<\/p>\n

So Haunting Jasmine<\/em> starts with quite a saucy departure from your previous novels. What prompted the impulse?<\/strong>
\nThe departure seemed right for my character, a jilted divorc\u00e9e whose husband cheated on her. He dashed her dreams for a perfect life and a happy marriage \u2013\u00a0her thoughts seemed appropriate for the situation! [… click here for more<\/a>]\n

Author interview<\/strong>: Feature: “An Interview with Anjali Banerjee,” Bookslut.com, February 2011<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With her past seven published novels \u2013 written for audiences that range from middle-grade readers on up \u2013 Anjali Banerjee didn\u2019t particularly mention male body parts in any great detail. Maybe a twinkling eye here, capable hands there, but she certainly didn\u2019t dwell. But as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,6,53,30,6535,18],"tags":[1849,6608,33,58,59,10,11,1850,1867,1868,13,1869,39,571,1870,1871],"class_list":["post-11377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-author-interview-profile","category-fiction","category-indian-american","category-middle-grade-readers","category-repost","category-south-asian-american","tag-anjali-banerjee","tag-bookdragon","tag-bookslut","tag-coming-of-age","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-haunting-jasmine","tag-imaginary-men","tag-invisible-lives","tag-love","tag-maya-running","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-personal-transformation","tag-seaglass-summer","tag-silver-spell"],"yoast_head":"\nAuthor Interview: Anjali Banerjee [in Bookslut] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-interview-anjali-banerjee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Author Interview: Anjali Banerjee [in Bookslut] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With her past seven published novels \u2013 written for audiences that range from middle-grade readers on up \u2013 Anjali Banerjee didn\u2019t particularly mention male body parts in any great detail. 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