Indian author Bharati Mukherjee, part of a Canadian and American literary power couple with her husband writer Clark Blaise, died Saturday in New York at 76. Mukherjee, who was born in Kolkata, is known around the world for her books including The Middleman and Other Stories, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, that deal with immigrant life and trying to create a new identity for oneself – something she knew well from the experience of her own life. “She was an early writer dealing with the kinds of tensions that we’re still dealing with today,” said Iris Tupholme, her editor at HarperCollins Canada.