Jasmine (1989) is a novel by Bharati Mukherjee set in the present about a young Indian woman in the United States who, trying to adapt to the American way of life in order to be able to survive, changes identities several times. This image is a book cover. ... See also: 1988 in literature, other events of 1989, 1990 in literature, list of years in literature. ... Bharati Mukherjee (born July 27, 1940) is an Indian-American fiction writer and university professor currently teaching at the English Department of the University of California, Berkeley. ... // Computer programming In object-oriented programming, object identity is a mechanism for distinguishing different objects from each other. ...

Jasmine's arranged marriage to a young Indian back in their home town ends abruptly when he is killed in a bombing. Still in her teens but already a widow, Jasmine flees India and, after an odyssey, arrives in Florida on a small boat and enters the United States as an illegal immigrant. During her first night in America, which she spends huddled together with some other illegal aliens in a disused motel, she kills the captain of the ship after he has raped her. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A widow is a woman whose spouse has died. ... Odysseus and Nausicaä - by Charles Gleyre The Odyssey (Greek: Οδύσσεια, Odússeia) is the second of the two great Greek epic poems ascribed to Homer, the first of which is the Iliad. ... Official language(s) English Capital Tallahassee Largest city Jacksonville Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 22nd 170 451 km² 260 km 800 km 17. ... It has been suggested that illegal alien be merged into this article or section. ... Holiday Inn Great Sign Exterior of a Howard Johnsons motor lodge. ... Captain is both a nautical term and a rank in various uniformed organizations. ...

Aimlessly walking along a country road not knowing what to do next, Jasmine is picked up by a woman who has helped other illegal immigrants before her. After being given some basic introduction to U.S. society, she sets out to look for a fatherly friend of her dead husband's who is said to be working as a university professor. However, when Jasmine actually meets him she realizes that he holds some menial job and that for years he has been lying about it in his letters back home. A university is an institution of higher education and of research, which grants academic degrees at all levels (bachelor, master, and doctor) in a variety of subjects. ... A professor (Latin: one who publicly professes to be an expert) (or prof for short) is a senior teacher, lecturer and researcher, usually in a college or university. ...

Disillusioned by this experience, Jasmine wanders on and gets a job as a nanny. She falls in love with her employer, has a brief fling with him and soon realizes that it is time she moved on. She ends up in a small town in Iowa, where she attracts the attention of an old woman whose son, a rich and influential man, has been shot at and is now paralysed. Jasmine marries the man and, as her husband would like to have a child by her, is artificially inseminated. However, just when she starts feeling her pregnancy she decides to leave her husband again and move to California with her former employer, who has split up with his wife but was given custody of their daughter. Just over 20, Jasmine is going to be the mother in a patchwork family. A nanny is defined as a childs nurse. The traditional nanny was a servant in a large household and reported directly to the lady of the house. ... Official language(s) English Capital Des Moines Largest city Des Moines Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 26th 145,743 km² 320 km 500 km 0. ... Paralysis is the complete loss of muscle function for one or more muscle groups. ... URGHHHHHHHHHHHH Artificial insemination (AI) is when sperm is placed into a females ovarian follicle (intrafollicular), uterus (intrauterine), cervix (intracervical), or fallopian tubes (intratubal) using artificial means rather than by natural copulation. ... Pregnancy Pregnancy is the carrying of one or more embryos or fetuses by female mammals, including humans, inside their bodies. ... Official language(s) English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 3rd 410,000 km² 402. ... Child custody and guardianship are the legal terms used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent and child, including e. ... Look up mother in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Nowhere in the novel is there any mention of the police trying to track down the captain's killer.

Read on

• T. C. Boyle's novel The Tortilla Curtain (1995) is about a Mexican couple living illegally in California and getting into trouble.
• See Heroines in literature for a list of female protagonists.