The Holder of the World

The Holder of the World, (1993)  is a novel by Bharati Mukherjee. It is a retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, placing the story in two centuries (17th and 20th). The novel involves time travel via virtual reality, locating itself in 20th century Boston, 17th century Colonial America, and 17th century India during the spread of the British East India Company. It also references Thomas Pynchon's novel, V.. The Holder of the World was among the contenders in a 2014 list by The Telegraph of the 10 all-time greatest Asian novels

Publication history

 * Hardcover — ISBN 0-394-58846-0 (ISBN 978-0-394-58846-9), published in September 1993 by Alfred A. Knopf.
 * Paperback — ISBN 0-449-90966-2 (ISBN 978-0-449-90966-9), published in September 1994 by Random House