Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star

Finalist for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography One of Publishers Weekly and Booklist's Best Books of 2025 “[An] extraordinary account of the hardship and rampant racism Oberon…faced during Hollywood’s golden age.” —New York Times Book Review A beautiful reclamation of a pioneering South Asian actress captures her glittering, complicated life and lasting impact on Hollywood. Merle Oberon made history when she was announced as a nominee for the Best Actress Oscar in 1936. Hers was a face that “launched a thousand ships,” a so-called exotic beauty who the camera loved and fans adored. Her nomination for The Dark Angel marked the first time the Academy recognized a performer of color. Almost ninety years before actress Michelle Yeoh would triumph in the same category, Oberon, born to a South Asian mother and white father in India, broke through a racial barrier—but no one knew it. Oberon was “passing” for white. In the first biography of Oberon (1911–1979) in more than forty years, Mayukh Sen draws on family interviews and heretofore untapped archival material to capture the exceptional life of an oft-forgotten talent. Born into poverty, Queenie Thompson dreamt of big-screen stardom.