Mayukh Sen is the author of Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star (W.W. Norton & Company, 2025). He is a Class of 2025 Fellow at New America, and he teaches film and television journalism at New York University. He lives in Brooklyn.
An “extraordinary account” (New York Times Book Review) of a pioneering South Asian actress’ exceptional life and lasting legacy.
Merle Oberon attained Hollywood immortality with a Best Actress Oscar nomination for the 1935 film The Dark Angel. It was the first time the Academy recognized a performer of color—but few knew it. Oberon, born to a South Asian mother and white father in India, was “passing” for white. In the first major biography of Oberon in over four decades, Mayukh Sen draws on family interviews and heretofore untapped archival material to animate the Wuthering Heights star’s hard-won journey from poverty to fame. With “chutzpah and sympathy” (Ty Burr, Wall Street Journal), “sensitivity and verve” (Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times), Love, Queenie captures one woman’s glittering and complicated life, illuminating troubling truths on race, gender, and power that still resonate today.
PRAISE FOR LOVE, QUEENIE:
“'What does America want from its stars when they come from the margins?' Sen asks in this extraordinary account of the hardship and rampant racism Oberon, a movie star who spent her entire career hiding her South Asian roots, faced during Hollywood’s golden age.” — The New York Times Book Review
”The chroniclers of classic-era Hollywood have never quite known what to do with Merle Oberon….So it takes chutzpah and sympathy to write a biography about Oberon, but Mayukh Sen has both.” — Ty Burr, The Wall Street Journal
”In Love, Queenie, writer Mayukh Sen cheerfully reclaims her story, narrating it with sensitivity and verve….[T]he book is written as if living alongside Oberon during her lifetime, giving emotional heft to her sometimes difficult choices.” — Carolyn Kellogg, The Los Angeles Times
”With fluid pacing, Sen traces the 'culture of exclusion' of the times that hobbled and channeled Oberon’s life and career….Sen’s story shines throughout. The narrative is woven with surgical precision, never flaunting the obvious depth of its research.” — Akanksha Singh, Los Angeles Review of Books
”Sen’s book is one of the best film-related biographies I’ve read. It vividly recreates a complex, often painful life that can be admired not just for her matchless physical beauty but also for how she dealt with its many challenges, above all with the suppression of that other self that never went away but had to be kept in its place.” — Brian McFarlane, The Sydney Morning Herald
”Her story was alluring enough to become the subject of biographies, novel and television mini-series. Yet nothing fully captured her drive, spirit and audacity. But now a farm-fresh biography, Love, Queenie by Mayukh Sen, locates, contextualises and explains Merle Oberon like none before...Sen guides us through every bend of her life, seeing her with a sympathetic lens.” — Avijit Ghosh, Times of India
“It could be tempting to dismiss Oberon as a self-absorbed, money-driven diva who acquired and shed lovers and husbands like outgrown fashions. But Sen elegantly and thoroughly performs a work of historical recovery for a subject whose uniqueness has never been fully understood or appreciated.” — Kendra Nordin Beato, Christian Science Monitor
“Throughout every up and down of Oberon’s career, Sen pays her—and his readers—the implicit compliment of not turning his subject into a saint….Love, Queenie is earnestly affectionate but pulls none of these punches, which makes it both bracing and refreshing reading, the year’s first genuinely worthwhile movie star biography. All previous studies of this troubled, fascinating figure can be readily retired.” — Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review
”[A] scrupulous and moving biography….Oberon’s elan embosses Sen’s easy and engaging prose….Thanks to Sen’s insightful, compassionate, and historically-attuned narrative skill, the significance of Oberon’s signature is legible beyond the page.” — Sumaiya Aftab Ahmed, Metropolitan Review
”Oberon's story is far richer than any of her screen roles….The book is a fascinating portrait of a woman of ambition as well as a look at Hollywood's color barriers.” — Daniel Bubbeo, Newsday
”Mr. Sen carefully corrects Charles Higham’s fanciful biography and filmographies that mistakenly attribute certain roles to Oberon….One of the most excruciating scenes in this powerful biography is Oberon’s late in life visit to Tasmania, still unable to admit the fiction of her birth there.” — Carl Rollyson, New York Sun
“Sen’s thorough research, graceful prose, and nuanced analyses of the systems of oppression framing Oberon’s life offer a layered and engrossing portrait of a woman who skyrocketed to well-earned stardom while enduring the trauma of hiding her race. An extraordinary biography of an extraordinary South Asian woman.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Film critic Sen (Taste Makers) delivers a moving biography of Merle Oberon (1911–1979), the first actor of color nominated for an Academy Award … Though Sen covers the tragic elements of Oberon’s story (she endured a barrage of cosmetic procedures, including skin bleaching at the behest of her studio, in an effort to overcome Hollywood’s ageism and racism), he emphasizes the stirring determination she showed in scrapping her way to the film industry’s upper echelon. It’s a poignant account of the sacrifices that enabled an extraordinary career.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Sen anchors Oberon’s complicated story and spotty filmography within the racism and classism of the early twentieth century, crediting her as a pioneer for the growing cadre of South Asian actors only now breaking through filmdom’s capricious prejudices. Sen finally gives this oft-overlooked actor her due.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Through Mayukh Sen’s remarkable book, I discovered a brilliant, ambitious actress who could achieve visibility only by making her past invisible. After reading Love, Queenie, I hold two opposing thoughts in my mind: ‘Look how far we’ve come,’ and ‘Not much has changed.’” — Poorna Jagannathan, actress, Never Have I Ever
”The saga of Merle Oberon is one of Hollywood’s most extraordinary tales—one that has, at long last, found the right teller in Mayukh Sen, whose wonderful book is written with compassion, clear eyes, and panache.” — Michael Schulman, author of Oscar Wars
“Love, Queenie is a deeply drawn portrait of the fascinating screen star Merle Oberon. Told with empathy and rigor, it’s also a grand tour of Hollywood’s opulence and racism through the decades. A compelling story of one woman’s struggle to make a life for herself against the odds. I could not put this book down.” — Padma Lakshmi, author of Love, Loss, and What We Ate
“Love, Queenie introduced me to a star whose life story I now find extraordinary. More, this entrancing book left me reflecting on the society which compelled such a star to hide who she was all her life. An invaluable biography rich with surprises, heartbreak, and the complicated fulfillment of dreams.” — Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning
“Mayukh Sen has written a deeply sympathetic portrait of one of Hollywood’s most misunderstood figures. Love, Queenie is not only a love letter to Merle Oberon’s under appreciated filmography, but also an unflinching examination of how the era’s racial codes constricted her life, on and off the screen.” — Katie Gee Salisbury, author of Not Your China Doll
“Merle Oberon never got to tell the true story of her life. Mayukh Sen finally has, and it rivals that of any character she played on the screen. I couldn’t put this book down.” — Carla Valderrama, author of This Was Hollywood