About
Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay, who goes by “Raj”, originally trained as a scientist. After earning a Ph.D. in biochemistry, Raj launched a career in science communications. For nearly two decades, she worked as a science storyteller in various forms, including as a journalist and the leader of an award-winning custom content studio. Her science writing has appeared in several media outlets in the U.S. and the U.K.
Raj is not a single-genre writer. In 2025, Raj was selected to be a fellow of the Get the Word Out program for fiction, a publicity incubator for debut literary fiction writers, by Poets & Writers. Her debut novel, “Chitra Demands To Go Home,” was published in May 2026 by Modern Artist Press. The novel has been receiving critical acclaim including in Debutiful, Electric Literature, and The Chicago Review of Books.
Featured Work
Chitra Demands to Go Home
A poignant debut novel that explores mother-son relationships, cross-cultural conversations, and the tribulations of getting older.
Chitra Demands to Go Home tells the story of Chitra, a 75-year-old Bengali woman who feels trapped in an assisted living facility and just wants to go home.
Chitra spent her life taking care of her children and her husband in a foreign country and managing a grand house in Kolkata, India. Now, in her mid-seventies, widowed, and with her children living their own lives, Chitra plans to travel the world and enjoy the hospitality granted to respected family elders.
However, her plans are upended when she suffers a stroke and her younger son has a heart attack. Chitra then finds herself among American strangers in the institutional blandness of Tranquil Town, an assisted living facility in Columbus, Ohio. As her temporary stay stretches longer and longer, Chitra does everything she can to avoid making friends and convince her sons to take her home.
Describing both the bitter and the sweet, Chitra Demands to Go Home explores mother-son relationships, cross-cultural conversations, and the tribulations of getting older as Chitra plots her triumphant return to her home in Kolkata.
Other Works
Awards and Recognition
- Raj was one of Poets & Writers’ Fall 2025 Fiction Fellows for their Get the Word Out publicity incubator: https://www.pw.org/about-us/news-releases/ten_authors_to_watch_introducing_the_2025_get_the_word_out_fiction_fellows
Press and Media Mentions
- Wendy J. Fox writes in Electric Literature, “In Chitra Demands to Go Home, Mukhopadhyay gives voice to the familiar and frustrating dynamics of familial expectations, and the challenges of managing aging parents along with both raising children and taking care of ourselves. A thoughtful and relatable novel.”
- Katy Gathright, in her review of the book in Washington-Unbound, says, “Chitra, of the eponymous Chitra Demands to Go Home , (Modern Artist Press, May 2026), is neither soft, wise, nor charmingly grumpy. I can’t say I love her for it—her personality is prickly without much to balance it out—but in this debut novel from Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay, I found myself loving the story precisely because Chitra is a character to chafe against.”
- Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay on the Cross-Cultural Tensions in "Chitra Demands to Go Home"
- Ellen Comisar, host of A Mighty Blaze's Debut Spotlight, was in conversation with Raj about "Chitra Demands to Go Home".
- “Raj captures the fierceness of Chitra who wants to live on her terms and how sometimes others can provide a different perspective.” — Jen Jumba, host of the podcast Storied Account.
- “Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay “put away the call of her soul” to become a scientist, earning a PhD. in biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology. But after two decades as a science writer, feeling grateful for her career wasn’t enough. Her debut novel, Chitra Demands to Go Home, was drafted in the car during her youngest kid’s tennis practice, and Raj proceeded to encounter the sheer vulnerability of fiction where you can’t hide behind rules, facts, or data”. — Nicole Gulotta, host of the Slow Writing podcast
