Julie Mehta

Julie B. Mehta teaches at University College, University of Toronto. Her course, "Asian Cultures in Canada," is endowed by Chancellor Emerita Senator Vivienne Poy. Mehta is an author and journalist specializing in Southeast Asia.

Biography

Early life and education

Mehta holds a Master's degree in English Literature and is a gold medallist from Jadavpur University Calcutta. At the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto, her Ph.D. dissertation is entitled "Retrieving Precolonial Identity through the Images of the Divine Feminine in Waterscapes of Postcolonial Fiction."

Journalistic career

Journalist Grade A1, in the early-1980s in the Australian Public Service, Canberra. Worked for two ministries -- Ministry of Veteran's Affairs (that dealt mainly with Vietnam War Veterans), and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Editor, "Technocrat", a technology and business magazine of the Sterling Newspaper group, Bombay, in the mid-1980s.

Editor, "Connoisseur's Asia", a Singapore-based literary, arts and culture magazine, in the early 1990s.

Features Editor, "Times Periodicals", Singapore, in the mid-1990s.

Literary reviewer of contemporary literature and interviewer of Booker Prize winners and celebrated authors such as Arundhati Roy, Rohinton Mistry, Ben Okri, David Malouf, Norman Mailer, Mario Vargas Llosa, Christopher J. Koch and many others. Julie was also a feature writer on religion, arts, and cultures of Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, India and Cambodia; and columnist for The Nation, Bangkok, and The Straits Times, Singapore.

Marriage and children

She is married to journalist and author Harish C. Mehta.

Published works

*"Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia" co-authored with Harish C. Mehta (Graham Brash, 1999)
*"Dance of Life: The Mythology, History, and Politics of Cambodian Culture" (Graham Brash, 2001)