Mina, V. K. 1979(?)-

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Mina, V. K. 1979(?)-

PERSONAL: Born c. 1979.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Serpent's Tail Publishing, 4 Blackstock Mews, London N4 2BT, England.

CAREER: Writer.

WRITINGS:

The Splintered Day, Serpent's Tail (New York, NY), 1999.

Contributor to journals and magazines, including Kenyon Review, Wasafiri, International Quarterly, and Manushi. Work anthologized in Streetlights: Illuminating Tales of the Urban Black Experience and (in Italian translation) Un letto di riso.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A book of short stories titled Plenty.

SIDELIGHTS: V. K. Mina's first novel, The Splintered Day, is a collection of stories revolving around Neelan, alternately referred to as "N" or Lilly. Neelan and the other characters in the book live in New York's East Village, are obsessed with love and sex, and are clearly disappointed with New York City and its nightlife. The characters, who like Neelan appear under different names in different parts of the book, are primarily of Indian or other South Asian heritages; and the book contains many references to south Asian culture and food. However, the main focus of The Splintered Day is on the characters' erotic encounters, such as the young Asian narrator of one story who is rejected by her black lover because he thinks she is too "dark," and the woman who loses a female lover who touched her like no man had.

Writing in Booklist, Whitney Scott called Mina's stories "a harsh Indo-American version of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City." Scott also commented that "a sense of malaise—an anomie of the spirit compounded from longing and the loss of the very idea of love—pervades the stories." In a review in the New York Times, Melanie Rehak commented, "There is some real thought here—but it's hard to discern amid the din of the music, the flashing disco lights and the relentless rustling of the sheets." A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that the author "has found a structure and several voices suited to the deadening, tiring and confusing use-or-be-used world she describes," and Laurence Chua noted on PlanetOut.com that "Mina's frank and witty prose often follows an unruly narrative path, slipping from past to present with an engaging grace."