''The Holder of the World'', (1993) is a novel by

Bharati Mukherjee Bharati Mukherjee (July 27, 1940 – January 28, 2017) was an Indian American-Canadian writer and professor emerita in the department of English at the University of California, Berkeley. She was the author of a number of novels and short story ...

. It is a retelling of

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...

's 1850 novel ''

The Scarlet Letter ''The Scarlet Letter: A Romance'' is a work of historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym ...

'', placing the story in two centuries (17th and 20th). The novel involves

time travel Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...

via

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

, locating itself in 20th century

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, 17th century

Colonial America The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the ...

, and 17th century

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

during the spread of the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

. It also references Thomas Pynchon's novel, '' V.''. ''The Holder of the World'' was among the contenders in a 2014 list by ''The Telegraph'' of the 10 all-time greatest Asian novels

References

External links

*
Holders of the Word:An Interview with Bharati Mukherjee
' *

' * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20051126142509/http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/oldenglish/resources/naww/authors/holder.htm Reader's guidebr>Powells book review

Publication history

* Hardcover — (), published in September 1993 by

Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...

. * Paperback — (), published in September 1994 by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

1993 American novels Parallel literature Novels by Bharati Mukherjee Alfred A. Knopf books Novels set in Boston Novels set in India Novels set in the American colonial era Novels about time travel Chatto & Windus books Works based on The Scarlet Letter {{AsianAmerican-stub

References

Further reading

External links

Publication history