The Holder of the World

The Holder of the World
First edition (US)
AuthorBharati Mukherjee
LanguageEnglish
PublisherAlfred A. Knopf (US)
Chatto and Windus (UK)
Publication date
September 1993
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages286 pp
ISBN0-394-58846-0
OCLC27641604
813/.54 20
LC ClassPR9499.3.M77 H65 1993
Preceded byJasmine 
Followed byLeave It to Me 

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 Mughal-ruled 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