Nandini Bhattacharya

I was born and raised in India, but I’ve called the United States my second continent for the last thirty-five years. As you see, I do not call either place “home,” because it’s that question of where “home” is that my writing, dreaming, and searching are all about. Maybe it’s in books, art, and communities of the curious, compassionate, and creative, because wherever I’ve lived, I’ve generally turned to them for answers to life’s big questions. One of those big questions is how we lose our homes and lands—where our placentas are buried, making our connections to our mothers deathless— because of atrocities committed and institutionalized by scoundrels who find their last resort in politics, be it in the US, India, Russia, Israel, or elsewhere.

In other news, I’m a writer, Professor of English, public speaker, reviewer, and blogger. My first novel Love’s Garden (2020) garnered critical praise as “a fascinating and well-crafted journey into India's complex past” (Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni), and “a sprawling family saga set against a background of some of the most momentous events of twentieth-century Indian history” (Clifford Garstang). Shorter work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cincinnati Review, Bellevue Literary Review, ROOM, Chicago Quarterly Review, Another Chicago Magazine, River Styx, Rumpus, Notre Dame Review, Oyster River Pages, Folio Literary Journal, Sky Island Journal, Bangalore Review,  Bombay Review, PANK, the Saturday Evening Post Best Short Stories 2021, Raising Mothers Journal, Funny Pearls, and more.

My second novel, Something of Me in You–about love, caste, colorism, and violent religious fundamentalism in India, and racism and xenophobia in post-Donald Trump America–is contracted with Ghosh Literary Agency and under submission. Please wish me luck! As I twiddle my thumbs for news on that one, I’m working on two other novels about the mysteriousness of family and mysterious families.

Visit me at Amazon, Author’s Guild, X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Goodreads, Substack, Medium, Bluesky, YouTube, Tumblr, and my Blog

Readings and Events:

Invited Reading at Lit Balm: an Interactive Livestream Reading Series, February 27, 2021

Invited Workshop and Reading with a focus on Love’s Garden at Dev Samaj College for Women, Panjab University, India, February 2, 2021

Featured Reading from Love’s Garden in the Hidden Timber Book Reading Series, January 24, 2021

Featured Reading at Sacred Grounds Bookstore in San Francisco, January 13, 2021

Reading at the KGB Bar, New York City, Nov 15, 2020

Readings and Conversations on Youtube Podcasts:Desi Books Episode 21 Interviews:

Author’s Guild Author Spotlight, Tupelo Quarterly