Prof. Dr. Bharathi Mukherjee of University of California at Berkley speaking on creative writing to faculty members of the Business English Department.
The audience of faculty members and students listening to Prof. Dr. Bharathi at Bang Na campus on June 13 by courtesy of the American Embassy, Bangkok.
Prof. Dr. Bharathi with Chairperson and faculty members of the Business English Department in a commemorative photo taken at Bang Na campus.
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FACULTY OF ARTS
U.S. Prof. Dr. Bharathi Mukher-jee at Bang Na
Business English lecturers and students honing their writing skills this semester, were treated to a rare delight on Friday afternoon, June 13. In collaboration with the US. Embassy, in Bangkok, Assumption University welcomed University of California at Berkley's foremost creative writing scholar, Dr. Bharathi Mukherjee to the Bang Na campus. For close on two hours, she shared her quite unique life story and entertained questions from the instructors and students.
"Revision, revision, revision... "is a key and unavoidable part to good writing, Dr. Bharathi stressed, as she also consoled her audience with the assurance that "being a good writer" is not just a matter of genetic makeup. Having a love of writing and a persistent motivation to keep learning how to improve and polish one's style and expression are also integral to becoming and continuing to be a "good writer," she advised.
Together with her husband, Dr. Blaise Clarke, who is also a graduate of the University of Iowa's trail breaking Master's degree in Fine Arts in Writing, Dr. Bharathi led us through the various cameos of her much traveled life, allowing her audience to easily sense how her multi-cultured background has become the inspiration of her much acclaimed fiction works, such as Jasmine and The Outsider.
Dr. Bharathi's nurturing began within the Brahmin caste of Kolkota, India. Layers of spice and curiosity were soon added to her life when she began her schooling at a nearby Catholic College operated by Irish Sisters of Loreto. Soon, however, at the impressionable age of eight, Dr. Bharathi was whisked off into the British culture when her father took up an appointment in England. Since then, her life has taken her to Canada and, now, the United States with yearly return visits to her family in Kolkota.
The two-hour conversation had every taste of an inter-cultural gathering which enfleshed the early expressed dream of Brother Martin that Au truly become a meeting place of international scholars. June l3's meeting of accomplished and budding writers grounded that dream in reality.
Martin J. Dean
Department of Business English
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