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About Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Book Award and the internation Premio Scanno Prize. Divakaruni also writes for children and young adults.
Her latest novel is Oleander Girl (Simon and Schuster, 2013). Her upcoming novel is Before We Visit the Goddess (about 3 generations of women-- grandmother, mother and daughter-- who each examine the question "what does it mean to be a successful woman." April 2016, Simon & Schuster.)
Two of her books, The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart, have been made into movies. Her novels One Amazing Thing and Palace of Illusions have been optioned. Her collection of stories, Arranged Marriage has been made into a play.
She was born in India and came to the United States to continue her education, receiving a Master's degree from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
She currently teaches in the nationally ranked Creative Writing program at the Univ. of Houston. She serves on the Advisory board of Maitri in the San Francisco Bay Area and Daya in Houston, organizations that help South Asian or South Asian American women in abusive situations. She is also closely involved with Pratham, an organization that helps educate children (especially those living in urban slums) in India.
She has judged several prestigious awards, such as the National Book Award and the PEN Faulkner Award.
She lives in Houston with her husband Murthy and has two sons, Anand and Abhay (whose names she has used in her children's novels).
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Author Updates
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Blog postMy novel about the Ramayana is about to come out soon in India. In January 2019, to be precise.
It’s written in Sita’s voice.
I’ve been planning this book for about ten years, ever since my novel on the Mahabharat, The Palace of Illusions, was published. It’s the longest I’ve ever spent obsessing over a book.
I was very e
2 years ago Read more -
Blog postI recently joined Instagram as @divakarunichitra and have posted a few items: books, quotations, recipes, favorite poems, writing tips, funny snippets, and sneak-peeks into my life. Please check it out and let me know what you think.
I’d love to get some advice from readers/friends/fellow-writers about how to get better at it.
Hoping to hear from you!
2 years ago Read more -
Blog postHere are three easy and delicious Indian recipes from my novel, Before We Visit the Goddess, where 3 generations of mothers and daughters in an immigrant family pass on--and transform--family recipes to suit their lifestyles.
Food is important in all families, probably, but particularly crucial in immigrant families. We often pass on traditions along with recipes. My mother did that, and I think I do it, too, with my sons.
These three recipes are ones that I've tried and e4 years ago Read more -
Blog postI wrote about my mother and how she influenced my writing in my previous post.
I'd like to dedicate this post to my mother-in-law, Sita Shastri Divakaruni, who also passed away a few years ago. Below is a photo of her at prayer, which is how I remember her most clearly. I don't recollect her ever missing a day of puja.
4 years ago Read more -
Blog postMy mother, Tatini Banerjee, passed away some years back. I remember her all the time, with fondness, thanks, regret (I was often a bad daughter!) and some heartache. She was a big influence on my life and on my writing.
On the occasion of Mother's Day, I wrote about her,
4 years ago Read more -
Blog postThe India trip was amazing, and left me with so many memories. I'm sharing a few with you, hoping you will enjoy them. Let me know.
ROSE ICE CREAM, JAIPUR
First, the food! At the Jaipur Literature Festival Authors Rece
4 years ago Read more -
Blog postI just came back from a wonderful visit to India to celebrate the launch of the paperback of my newest novel, Before We Visit the Goddess, the adventures of three generations of Indian women, spanning India and USA. You can read more about it here: http://www.chitradivakaruni.com/
Thanks to everyone who helped make the tour a success: my publisher Simon and Schuster India, especially my wonderful publicist Bharti Taneja; my agent Sandra Dijkstra and her associates; ZEE J4 years ago Read more -
Blog postA new book publication is always a hectic affair, and since the birth of Before We Visit the Goddess, things have been exciting but crazy. I’ve been rushing around on book tour, eating whatever I can grab on the run. So now that I am home for a few days, I thought I would make something healthy for myself and Murthy for our lunch.
I decided on an Indian style omelette, because it is tasty, easy to make, quick, healthy and low-carb. It's also a comfort-food out of my childhood. My mothe5 years ago Read more -
Blog postWith each of my novels, I try to set myself a new challenge. While writing my newest, Before We Visit the Goddess, I set myself two: I would write a novel-in-stories, and I would use multiple voices to tell the three-generational tale of Sabitri, Bela, and Tara. Additionally, some of these voices would be male. (So maybe that's three challenges!)
The male voices were difficult. I won't pretend they weren't. Women's voices just come more naturally to me. I understand how they thin5 years ago Read more -
Blog postI’ve been thinking a lot about my mother recently, since the publication of my newest novel, Before We Visit the Goddess, which is about three generations of women – grandmother, mother, daughter – and what they learn, both positive and negative, from each other.
Or perhaps the novel came about because I’ve been thinking of my mother for the last five years, ever since she passed away.
My mother was the most important woman in my life. She taught me much of what I know about lif5 years ago Read more -
Blog postOn the occasion of the publication of my new novel, Before We Visit the Goddess, which is all about mothers and daughters and the complex bond between them, I wrote up a piece for Deccan Herald. I'm sharing my thoughts below:
"I wish for all mothers the enduring love of our children, from sweaty, sticky-fingered hugs when they are small to conversations late into the night, with laughter and tears, when they have grown and become our friends. Because the adventure of motherhood is5 years ago Read more -
Blog postIn my upcoming novel, Before We Visit the Goddess, about three generations of women–a grandmother, mother and daughter who love, support and battle each other–Tara the daughter says that she likes cooking things that require only 20 minutes of time, from the chopping board to the table. I often feel that way, and on some of those days I create my own dishes. Today was one such day because I'm getting really busy with pre-publicity for the novel, which is coming out in April 2016. Below i5 years ago Read more
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Blog postMy new novel, Before We Visit the Goddess, will be out in April 2016.
The birth of each new book is a very exciting event for me. I think I'm looking forward to this one as much as I did to my first collection of stories, Arranged Marriage!
Here is a preview of the book jacket.
The
5 years ago Read more -
Blog postAlthough my husband Murthy and I are both Indian, I come from Bengal and he from the state of Andhra Pradesh, and our cuisines are different in many ways. Marriage to him, in fact, has made me realize how diverse the culture of India is, a fact that I’ve tried to explore in novels such as One Amazing Thing and Oleander Girl.
Over the years, I’ve learned to cook several of the comfort dishes that put a smile on Murthy’s face. Today I made yogurt (curd) rice, South Indian style.
6 years ago Read more -
Blog postAn admired poet and writing teacher, Bob Hass, once told me, "It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only happy state is just having written."
Over the years, I've come to experience the truth of the statement. If you're a writer, you have to write. But writing can be hard. The days when inspired beauty flows straight from the brain of God via your computer into the world are few. The rest of the time, it's a lot of staring at the blank screen, or writing a sentence6 years ago Read more -
Blog postI just got back from the 14th San Francisco Writers Conference, where I was invited as a keynote speaker by the wonderful organizers, Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen. It was such a great experience that I wanted to share some thoughts about it.
I hadn’t been to a writer’s conference in a while. Partly because I was busy. Partly because I felt that now that I had published over a dozen books, I knew the basics of the business and needed only to focus on writing and touring. And part7 years ago Read more -
Blog postOne of the things I most enjoy writing about in my novels is food. In all cultures--but particularly in India--food gives us so much more than physical nourishment. It is woven into customs, history, family lore. Through cooking, people demonstrate craft, creativity, love and pride.
8 years ago Read more -
Blog postThis Independence Day I found myself thinking about my relationship with America, and what I appreciate about living in this country. It struck me that one of the most important changes in my life that came about as a result of my immigration to America is that I became a writer. In India, growing up in a traditional family, I had never considered being a writer. I did not think I had the talent; more importantly, I did not think I had a story to tell. Moving to a very different culture and l8 years ago Read more
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Blog post(This post was originally written in May, just before Mother's Day. Because it was moved to a new site, it is postdated to June).
Mother's Day reminds me of how important my mother, who pretty much brought us up as a single parent, has been in my life. Perhaps the many mothers that I depict in my books--though they have little similarity to the biographical facts of her life-- are my attempt to understand the loving, stern, mysterious woman she was. (She passed away a few years ago. He8 years ago Read more -
Blog postBeing on tour for Oleander Girl and Grandma and the Great Gourd has made me think a great deal about what makes a successful author event.
Three things I consider important are:
1. Tell the audience something they wouldn't know just from reading the back jacket of the book, or from reviews and interviews. Something personal. With Oleander Girl, I often talk about how my grandfather was an inspiration for Korobi's grandfather, the loving but stern Bimal Roy who kept a huge secre8 years ago Read more
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Taking us back to a time that is half history, half myth and wholly magical, bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni gives voice to Panchaali, the fire-born heroine of the Mahabharata, as she weaves a vibrant retelling of an ancient epic saga.
Married to five royal husbands who have been cheated out of their father's kingdom, Panchaali aids their quest to reclaim their birthright, remaining at their side through years of exile and a terrible civil war. But she cannot deny her complicated friendship with the enigmatic Krishna—or her secret attraction to the mysterious man who is her husbands' most dangerous enemy—as she is caught up in the ever-manipulating hands of fate.
Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.
When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine characters together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive. There's little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, "one amazing thing" from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. And as their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self-discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression itself. From Chitra Divakaruni, author of such finely wrought, bestselling novels as Sister of My Heart, The Palace of Illusions, and The Mistress of Spices, comes her most compelling and transporting story to date. One Amazing Thing is a passionate creation about survival -- and about the reasons to survive.
Now immortal, and living in the gnarled and arthritic body of an old woman, Tilo has set up shop in Oakland, California, where she administers curatives to her customers. But when she's surprised by an unexpected romance with a handsome stranger, she must choose between everlasting life and the vicissitudes of modern society. Spellbinding and hypnotizing, The Mistress of Spices is a tale of joy, sorrow, and one special woman's magical powers.
Anju is the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family of distinction. Her cousin Sudha is the daughter of the black sheep of that same family. Sudha is startlingly beautiful; Anju is not. Despite those differences, since the day on which the two girls were born, the same day their fathers died--mysteriously and violently--Sudha and Anju have been sisters of the heart. Bonded in ways even their mothers cannot comprehend, the two girls grow into womanhood as if their fates as well as their hearts were merged.
But, when Sudha learns a dark family secret, that connection is shattered. For the first time in their lives, the girls know what it is to feel suspicion and distrust. Urged into arranged marriages, Sudha and Anju's lives take opposite turns. Sudha becomes the dutiful daughter-in-law of a rigid small-town household. Anju goes to America with her new husband and learns to live her own life of secrets. When tragedy strikes each of them, however, they discover that despite distance and marriage, they have only each other to turn to.
Set in the two worlds of San Francisco and India, this exceptionally moving novel tells a story at once familiar and exotic, seducing readers from the first page with the lush prose we have come to expect from Divakaruni. Sister of My Heart is a novel destined to become as widely beloved as it is acclaimed.
Sweeping across the twentieth century, from the countryside of Bengal, India, to the streets of Houston, Texas, Before We Visit the Goddess takes readers on an extraordinary journey through the lives of three unforgettable women: Sabitri, Bela, and Tara. As the young daughter of a poor rural baker, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but schooling is impossible on the meager profits from her mother’s sweetshop. When a powerful local woman takes Sabitri under her wing, her generous offer soon proves dangerous after Sabitri makes a single, unforgiveable misstep. Years later, Sabitri’s own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother’s choices, flees to America with her political refugee lover—but the world she finds is vastly different from her dreams. As the marriage crumbles and Bela decides to forge her own path, she unwittingly teaches her little girl, Tara, indelible lessons about freedom and loyalty that will take a lifetime to unravel.
Told through a sparkling symphony of voices—those of the women themselves and the men who loved them—Before We Visit the Goddess captures the gorgeous complexity of these multi-generational and transcontinental relationships, showing the deep threads of love and hope and bravery that define a family and a life. This is a “gracefully insightful, dazzlingly descriptive, and covertly stinging tale [that] illuminates the opposition women must confront, generation by generation, as they seek both independence and connection” (Booklist, starred review).
A widow in California, recently arrived from India, struggles to adapt to a world in which neighbors are strangers and her domestic skills are deemed superfluous in the award-winning “Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter.” In “The Intelligence of Wild Things,” a woman from Sacramento visits her brother in Vermont to inform him that back in Calcutta their mother is dying. And in the title story, a painter looks to ancient myth and the example of her grandmother for help in navigating her first real crisis of faith.
Knowing, compassionate and expertly rendered, the stories in The Unknown Errors of Our Lives depict the eternal struggle to find a balance between the pull of home and the allure of change.
THOUGH SHE WAS ORPHANED AT BIRTH, the wild and headstrong Korobi Roy has enjoyed a privileged childhood with her adoring grandparents, spending her first seventeen years sheltered in a beautiful, crumbling old mansion in Kolkata. But despite all that her grandparents have done for her, she is troubled by the silence that surrounds the circumstances of her parents’ death and clings fiercely to her only inheritance from them: the love note she found, years ago, hidden in a book of poetry that had belonged to her mother. As she grows, Korobi dreams of one day finding a love as powerful as her parents’, and it seems her wish has finally come true when she meets the charming Rajat, the only son of a high-profile business family.
Shortly after their engagement, however, a sudden heart attack kills Korobi’s grandfather, revealing serious financial problems and a devastating secret about Korobi’s past. Shattered by this discovery and by her grandparents’ betrayal, Korobi decides to undertake a courageous search across post-9/11 America to find her true identity. Her dramatic, often startling journey will ultimately thrust her into the most difficult decision of her life.
With flawless narrative instinct and a boundless sympathy for her irrepressible characters, in Oleander Girl Divakaruni brings us a perfect treat of a novel— moving, wise, and unforgettable. As The Wall Street Journal raves, “Divakaruni emphasizes the cathartic force of storytelling with sumptuous prose. . . . She defies categorization.”
Una novela histórica, mítica y mágica de la época del Mahabarata, una de las grandes epopeyas de la India.
Relevante para un mundo como el actual, devastado por la guerra, El palacio de las ilusiones nos transporta -con una visión en parte histórica, en parte mítica, y totalmente mágica- a la época de la epopeya india del Mahabarata. A través de su narradora, Panchaali, la esposa de los legendarios cinco hermanos Pandavas, Divakaruni nos ofrece una excepcional interpretación feminista de un relato épico.
La novela nos narra la vida de Panchaali, desde su nacimiento mágico del fuego como hija de un rey hasta su actuación enérgica como esposa de sus cinco maridos, que han sido expulsados del reino de su padre. Panchaali se empeña en reclamar los legítimos derechos de sus esposos, manteniéndose al lado de estos a lo largo de años de exilio y de una terrible guerra civil. Mientras tanto, asistimos a sus enfrentamientos con su suegra para hacerse con el control de su hogar, su complicada amistad con el enigmático Krishna y su atracción secreta por un hombre misterioso que resulta ser el enemigo más peligroso de su marido.
Panchaali es una vibrante voz femenina en un mundo de guerreros y dioses, y siempre en manos del destino.
Food can bring together families, communities, and cultures. It is the essence of life and yet our relationships with one another can be most fraught at the dinner table. This perpetually fascinating subject has inspired a unique collection of fiction—including flash fiction, essay, short stories, and even a "stoku" (amalgam of short story and haiku)—from a wonderfully diverse and international group of authors.
The authors in the anthology include Elaine Chiew, Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni, Rachel J. Fenton, Diana Ferraro, Vanessa Gebbie, Pippa Goldschmidt, Sue Guiney, Patrick J. Holland, Roy Kesey, Charles Lambert, Krys Lee, Stefani Nellen, Mukoma Wa Ngugi, Ben Okri, Angie Pelekidis, Susannah Rickards, and Nikesh Shukla.
Elaine Chiew is a London-based writer who has won several prizes for her short stories and flash fiction. She was included in One World: A Global Anthology of Short Stories. Many of her stories revolve around food.
Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni is an award-winning author, poet, activist, and teacher of writing. She has been published in many magazines and her writing has been included in over fifty anthologies.
Ben Okri has published eight novels, including The Famished Road and Starbook, as well as collections of poetry, short stories, and essays. He has won numerous international prizes.
Pippa Goldschmidt writes long and short fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Her PhD in astronomy inspired her first novel The Falling Sky, about a female astronomer who discovers the Universe and loses her mind.
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