Nandini Bhattacharya
I was born and raised in India and have called the United States my second continent for the last thirty years. Wherever I've lived, I've generally turned to books for the answers to life's question, big or small (that includes philosophy and recipes). My short stories have been published or will be in the Saturday Evening Post Best Short Stories from the Great American Fiction Contest Anthology 2021 (forthcoming 2021), the Good Cop/Bad Cop Anthology (Flowersong Press, 2021), the Gardan Anthology of the Craigardan Artists Residency, Funny Pearls, The Bombay Review, Meat for Tea: the Valley Review, Storyscape Journal, Raising Mothers, The Bangalore Review, OyeDrum, and more. I've attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Workshop and been accepted for residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, VONA, Centrum Writer's Residency, and the Ragdale Artist's Residency (forthcoming), among others. I was first runner-up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction contest (2017-2018), a finalist for the Fourth River Folio Contest for Prose Prize (2018), long-listed for the Disquiet International Literary Prize (2019 and 2020), a finalist for the Reynolds-Price International Women's Literary Award (2019), and a finalist for the Saturday Evening Post Great American Stories Contest, 2021
My first novel, Love's Garden, is an epic saga of Indian women living through a century of war and decolonization, and available to pre-order at Amazon and Aubade Publishing
Reviewers hail it as "wonderfully dense and wise," "gripping," and "a journey into India's complex past" and 'what women will do to protect those they love" -- an epic saga of Indian women living through a century of war and decolonization
I'm currently working on a second novel about love, minorities, racism, and Hindutva politics in India and xenophobic mentalities and other mysteries in Donald Trump's America, titled Homeland Blues. I love (and read) Jhumpa Lahiri, Megha Majumdar, Amitav Ghosh, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Salman Rushdie, and last but not least, Chimamanda Adichie. I live outside Houston and serve a teenager and a marmalade cat.
Works

Love's Garden, a novel
1898. India is ruled by the British. India’s women are ruled by British masters as well as Indian men. A young widow sacrifices her firstborn child to save herself from the ultimate dishonor. She marries a stranger, but her damaged second family pays the price for this Faustian bargain until extraordinary atonement and strange liaisons in politics, love, and war during the two world wars and the Indian independence movement help her descendants heal from this traumatic private history.
Order from
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/195154708X
https://www.amazon.in/dp/1951547152
https://www.flipkart.com/love-s-garden/p/itmd8e358b150747?pid=9781951547158
https://store.pothi.com/book/nandini-bhattacharya-loves-garden/
https://www.bookswagon.com/book/loves-garden-nandini-bhattacharya/9781951547080
https://aubadepublishing.com/books/loves-garden/ (Code Premlata fr free shipping)
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781951547080
https://bookshop.org/shop/nandinibhattacharyawrites
Awards and Recognition
- First runner-up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction contest (2017-2018), a finalist for the Fourth River Folio Contest for Prose Prize (2018), long-listed for the Disquiet International Literary Prize (2019 and 2020), a finalist for the Reynolds-Price International Women's Literary Award (2019), and a finalist for the Saturday Evening Post Great American Stories Contest, 2021.