Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (born Chitralekha Banerjee, 1956[2]) is an Indian-born American author, poet, and the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Her short story collection, Arranged Marriage, won an American Book Award in 1996. Two of her novels (The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart), as well as a short story (The Word Love) were adapted into films.
Divakaruni's works are largely set in India and the United States, and often focus on the experiences of South Asian immigrants. She writes for children as well as adults, and has published novels in multiple genres, including realistic fiction, historical fiction, magical realism, myth and fantasy.[3]
Divakaruni put herself through graduate school by taking on odd jobs, working as a babysitter, a store clerk, a bread slicer in a bakery, a laboratory assistant at Wright State University, and a dining hall attendant at International House, Berkeley. She was a graduate teaching assistant at U.C. Berkeley. She taught in California at Foothill College and Diablo Valley College. She now lives and teaches in Texas, where she is the McDavid Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program.[5]
Divakaruni is the co-founder and former president of Maitri, a helpline founded in 1991 in San Francisco for South Asian women dealing with domestic abuse.[6] Divakaruni is on its advisory board and on the advisory board of Daya, a similar service in Houston. She has served on the board of Pratham Houston, an organisation working to bring literacy to disadvantaged Indian children[when?], and is on their emeritus board.[7]
Works
Fiction and poetry
Divakaruni began her writing career as a poet.[8] Her volumes of poetry include Black Candle and Leaving Yuba City.[9]
Her first collection of stories Arranged Marriagewon an American Book Award, a PEN Josephine Miles Award, and a Bay Area Book Reviewers Award.[10] Her major novels include The Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, Queen of Dreams, One Amazing Thing, Palace of Illusions, Oleander Girl and Before We Visit the Goddess. She has also written a young adult fantasy series called The Brotherhood of the Conch which is located in India and draws on the culture and folklore of that region. The first book of the series, The Conch Bearer was nominated for the 2003 Bluebonnet Award.[citation needed] The second book of the series, The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming came out in 2005 and the third and final book of the series, Shadowland, was published in 2009.
Divakaruni's novel The Palace of Illusions, was a national best-seller for over a year in India and[11] is a re-telling of the Indian epicThe Mahabharata from Draupadi's perspective.[12]
Divakaruni's story Clothes from the collection Arranged Marriage was adapted into play under the title Arranged Marriage by Peggy Shannon in 2004, 2010, and 2016.[14][15]
In 2013, Divakaruni wrote the libretto to a chamber opera for Houston Grand Opera, River of Light, about the life of an Indian woman in Houston. It premiered in 2014[16] with original compositions by Jack Perla[17] and was shown again in 2015 by the opera company Festival Opera, directed by Tanya Kane-Parry at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center.[18]
The Palace of Illusions was adapted into a play named Fire and Ice: Draupadi's Story by Joe DiSabatino and performed in India under his direction. A Bollywood movie with the title Mahabharat, starring Deepika Padukone as Draupadi, is being prepared in India based on The Palace of Illusions. The premiere was scheduled for 2021.[19]
As of 2021, her novel One Amazing Thing has been optioned to become a Bollywood film.[10]
^Saraswat, Surbhi. "Myth & Gender: A Critical Reading of Chitra Banerjee Devakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess." International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities 6.2 (2018): 748-754.
Abcarian, Richard and Marvin Klotz. "Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni." In Literature: The Human Experience, 9th edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006: 1544.
Cheung, King-Kok (2000). Words matter conversations with Asian American writers. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press in association with UCLA Asian American Studies Center, Los Angeles. ISBN9780585469423. OCLC52974184.
Softsky, Elizabeth. "Cross Cultural Understanding Spiced with the Indian Diaspora." Black Issues in Higher Education 14 (15):26. 18 September 1997.
X.J. Kennedy et al. The Bedford Reader, 10th edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007: 446.
Majithia, Sheetal. "Of Foreigners and Fetishes: A Reading of Recent South Asian American Fiction." Samar 14: The South Asian American Generation (Fall/Winter 2001): 52–53. Of Foreigners and Fetishes | Samar Magazine
Newton, Pauline T. Transcultural Women of Later Twentieth Century US American Literature. Ashgate Publishing, 2005.
Merlin, Lara. "The Mistress of Spices." World Literature Today. University of Oklahoma. 1 January 1998.
Johnson, Sarah Anne. "Writing outside the Lines." Writer 117(3):20 Mar 2004.
Nelson, Emmanuel Sampath. Asian American Novelists A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN9780313309113
