Biography of the beatified Albanian, Mother Teresa, 1910 - 1997. The author Chatterjee is a Bengali born in Kolkata, who takes the position that Mother Teresa gave his city a bad reputation. On its face, this suggestion is unlikely since the phrase "black hole of Calcutta" preceded the arrival of the Sister of Charity's arrival to search for the most afflicted of the afflicted. She was honored not just with the Peace Prize in 1979, but with global acclaim. She received funds from many sources who shared her concerns and respected her examples and listened to her excellent speeches. Interestingly, the Catholic Church never sent her a dime.

However, drawing upon much of the actual research performed by Christopher Hitchens, and which remains unrefuted, Chatterjee also points out that Mother Teresa raised millions, often from tyrants and the wealthy whose largess she rewarded with assurances, and without any accounting or much to show for it. While she administered a large "work" -- at the time of her death in 1997, there were 4000 hospitals, orphanages, and care facilities, for the most part donated to her -- Chatterjee documents the fact that they have almost no "medical" equipment or pain killers. Poor people went to her to suffer and die, and Mother Teresa comforted them with the instruction that the pain was "a beautiful gift" enabling them to come closer to Jesus.

But for her part, when she suffered a heart attack on the occasion of her visit to Rome in 1987, she was provided with general anesthesia and a pace-maker. And she was given palliatives for pain in her final moments. Within months of her death, her instructions to burn her letters was disregarded, by her Catholic "counselors". Her letters reveal the stony admission that she found it impossible to believe in God who had never answered her lifetime of prayers.

Chatterjee is a Bengali physician living in Britain, married to the psychiatrist Zelpha Kittler. Their three children are scientists. The book was used in the script for the film "Hell's Angel" (1994), directed by Tariq Ali. ( )

This book is a very thorough look at the phenomenon in the west, Mother Theresa. The author sets out to look at how she is perceived in Calcutta (his native home), and what sort of effect, if any, she had on day-to-day life in Calcutta. Overall, the picture he paints is not a pretty one, and the verdict is that the revered nun may be more gilt than gold. Much more thorough than Christopher Hitchens's book on the same topic, he spends little time on her fundraising (the major theme in Hitchens's book), and instead focuses on her works. A good corrective for all the hagiographic works that have sprung up during the push to beatify the Albanian nun. Production values are a little poor, with a weak binding, because the author was unable to get the book published by any major western press. ( )