Gita Mehta

Gita Mehta (b. 1943), was born in Delhi in a family of freedom fighters, and is the daughter of Biju Patnaik, the most prominent political leader of Orissa. She completed her education in India and the UK (Cambridge University)

Although being the wife of Sonny Mehta, head of the Alfred A. Knopf house, keeps her in the publishing limelight, she has emerged a writer in her own right. The subject of both her fiction and non-fiction is exclusively focussed on India, its culture and history, and the Western perception of it. Her works reflect the insight gained through her journalistic and political background.

Gita Mehta divides her time among New York, London and New Delhi.

Works

• Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East
• Raj
• Snakes and Ladders
• A River Sutra

Bande, Usha. "Raj: a Thematic Study." In Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol.5. R.K. Dhawan (ed.). (New Delhi: Prestige, 1991), pp.239-46.

Bharucha, Nilufer E. "Charting of Cultural Territory: Second Generation Postcolonial Indian English Fiction." In The Postmodern Indian English Novel. Viney Kirpal (ed.). (Bombay: Allied, 1996), pp.355-67.

Bhaskaran, G. "Bureaucrat’s Quest: A Study of Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra." In Critical Essays on Indian Women Writing in English. A.S. Ratnam (ed.). (New Delhi: Harman Publishing House, 1999), pp.73-81.

Bhatt, Indira. "Shobha De’s Sultry Days & Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra: a Study in Orientalism." In Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol.1. R.K. Dhawan (ed.). (New Delhi: Prestige, 1995), pp.48-53; in The Fiction of Shobha De. Jaydipshinh Dodiya (ed.). (New Delhi: Prestige, 2000), pp.98-1 07.

Blair, Virginia, and others "The Feminist Companion to Literature in English." (London: 3T Batsford, 1990).

Boon, James A. "Against Coping across Cultures: The Semiotics of Self-Help Rebuffed." In Semiotics, Self and Society. Benjamin Lee & Greg Urban (eds.). (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1989), pp.153-70.

Boon, James A. "Against Coping across Cultures: The Semiotics of Self Help Rebuffed." (153-170)in Lee, Benjamin (ed.); Urban, Greg (ed.); Sebeok, Thomas A. Semiotics, Self, and Society. Berlin : Mouton de Gruyter, 1989.

Davis, Rocio G. "Gita Mehta's A River Sutra: Discovering India in a Postcolonial Short Story Cycle." (421-25) in Guardia, P. (ed. and introd.); Stone, J. (ed. and introd.). Proceedings of the 20th International AEDEAN Conference. Barcelona, Spain : Universitat de Barcelona, 1997.

Jam, Naresh K. "From Purdah to Polo Politics: A Study of Gita Mehta’s Raj." In Women in Indo-Anglian Fiction: Tradition and Modernity. Naresh K. Jam (ed.). (New Delhi: Manohar, 1998), pp.208-13.

Kalanmani, N. "Soul-Questers & Spiritual Bedlams: a Study of Gita Mehta’s Karma Cola." In Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol.4. R.K. Dhawan (ed.). (New Delhi: Prestige, 1995), pp.125-34.

Kalanmani, N. "Soul-Questers & Spiritual Bedlams: A Study of Gita Mehta’s Karma Cola & A River Sutra." In Indian Fiction of the Nineties. R.S. Pathak (ed.). (New Delhi: Creative, 1997), pp.105-23.

Mehta, Gita and Cutler, Anne. "Detection of Target Phonemes in Spontaneous and Read Speech." Language and Speech. 1988 Apr. June; 31(2): 135-156.

Nair, Rama. "The Myth of Redemption in Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra." In Fiction of the Nineties. Veena Noble Dass & R.K. Dhawan (eds.). (New Delhi: Prestige, 1994), pp.1 84-91; in Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol.4. R.K. Dhawan (ed.). (New Delhi: Prestige, 1995), pp.149-58.

Nityanandam, Indira. "Gita Mehta’s The River Sutra: the Threads of Life." In Fiction of the Nineties. Veena Noble Dass & R.K. Dhawan (eds.). (New Delhi: Prestige, 1994), pp.175-83; in Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol.4. R.K. Dhawan (ed.). (New Delhi: Prestige, 1995), pp.143-8.

Parameswaran, Uma. "Gita Mehta: A River Sutra." In Saclit: An introduction to South-Asian-Canadian Literature. Uma Parameswaran (ed.). (Madras: East West Books, 1996), pp.257-68.

Pathak, R.S. "A River Sutra: Thematic, Narrative & Semantic Structure." In Modern Indian Novel in English. R.S. Pathak. (New Delhi: Creative, 1999), pp.162-78.

Pathak, R.S. "Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra & Its Concentric Polysemy." In Indian Fiction of the Nineties. R.S. Pathak (ed.). (New Delhi: Creative, 1997), pp.105-23.

Pathak, R.S. "Tribal People, Locales & Values in A River Sutra." In Modern Indian Novel in English. R.S. Pathak. (New Delhi: Creative, 1999), pp.179-91.

Ramachandran, C. N. and Khan, A. G. "Gita Mehta's A River Sutra: Two Views. Literary Criterion. 1994; 29(3): 1-15.

Ramachandran, C.N. & Khan, A.G.: "Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra: Two Views." Literary Criterion 29:3 (1994), p.1 15.

Ray, Mohit Kumar. "A River Sutra: a Gyno-ecological Perspective." In Women Writers in the Twentieth Century Literature. Monika Gupta (ed.). (New Delhi: Atlantic, 2000), ch.4.

Sampat, Manju. "Old & New Expatriate Indian English Novelists." In Mapping Cultural Spaces: Postcolonial Indian Literature in English. Nilufer E. Bharucha & Vrinda Nabar (eds.). (New Delhi: Vision Books, 1998), pp.262-74.

Schneller, Beverly. "'Visible and Visitable': The Role of History in Gita Mehta's Raj and Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance." Journal of Narrative Theory. 2001 Summer; 31(2): 233-54.

Syal, Pushpinder. "The Threads of Narrative: Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra." In The Postmodern indian English Novel. Viney Kirpal (ed.). (Bombay: Allied, 1996), pp.84-93.

Trikha, Pradeep. "Gita Mehta’s The River Sutra: a Pilgrim’s Progress." In Fiction of the Nineties. Veena Noble Dass & R.K. Dhawan (eds.). (New Delhi: Prestige, 1994), pp.173-8; in Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol.4. R.K. Dhawan (ed.). (New Delhi: Prestige, 1995), pp.135-42.