Veena Gokhale

Veena Gokhale earned a B.A. from the University of Bombay and worked as print journalist in Bombay, India in from 1985-1991.  She came to Canada on a journalism fellowship.  In 1995 she completed a Master of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto.  She now lives in Montreal where she works as a communications consultant, teacher, and writer.

Fiction (Short Stories)

Bombay Wali and Other Stories

Toronto: Guernica, 2013.
PS8613 .O42 B66 2013

Publisher’s Synopsis

Twelve stories that provide startling glimpses of contemporary life in Bombay, and elsewhere.  An innocuous jazz concert that awakens painful memories for a middle-aged professor and caregiver, a wealthy business woman compelled by the desire to hurt her best friend, an errant page that leads a journalist on a wild goose chase.  Tales about friendship and repulsion, family ties and freedom; violence, public and private; ambition and uncertainty, alienation and acceptance, growing up and growing old.

Fiction

Land for Fatimah

Toronto: Guernica Editions, 2018.
PS8613 .O42 L36 2018

Publisher’s Synopsis (from its website)

Four strong women: Anjali, an Indo-Canadian single mother who eagerly accepts an African posting with her non-profit organization; Grace, her dedicated but dominating colleague, who opposes her; Fatimah, a farmer ousted from her home and fertile farmland, whom Anjali befriends; and Mary, Anjali’s kindly maid, who must secure the future of her son, Gabriel. In Land for Fatimah, Anjali involves herself in Fatimah’s quest to find new land for her scattered community, and is thrown into a web of intrigue that upturns her safe, orderly world. Capturing the warmth and vitality of Africa, illuminating everyday heroism, the novel explores expat life, the forced displacement of the poor and the complexities of development.

Selected Criticism and Interpretation

Chilana, Rajwant Singh. “Veena Gokhale.” In South Asian Writers in Canada: A Bio-Bibliographical Study. Surrey, BC: Asian Publications, 2017, 302-303.
Z1376 .S68 C45 2017