Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Born Chitralekha Banerjee
1956
Kolkata, India
Occupation Novelist
Nationality India, United States
Genres poetry, short stories, novels; fantasy, young adult
Notable work(s) Leaving Yuba City; Arranged Marriage; The Mistress of Spices; Sister of My Heart
Notable award(s) Ginsberg Poetry Prize; Pushcart Prize; LA Times Best Book; American Book Award; PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1956 - ) is an Indian-American author, poet, and professor of English at The University of Houston Creative Writing Program.

Contents

[edit] Background

Chitralekha Banerjee Divakaruni was born in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. She received her B.A. from the University of Calcutta in 1976. That same year, she went to the United States to attend Wright State University where she received her Master's degree. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1985 (Christopher Marlowe was the subject of her doctoral dissertation).

[edit] Career

She has taught at Foothill College in Los Altos, California. She has also worked as a babysitter, a store clerk, a bread slicer, a dining hall attendant, and in laboratories. She now lives in Texas, where she teaches at The University of Houston Creative Writing Program.

Divakaruni is also a co-founder and former president of a helpline for South Asian women who are dealing with various forms of abuse from others. The organization, Maitri, was founded in 1991.

[edit] Works

[edit] Fiction

Divakaruni's work has been published in over 50 magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and The New Yorker and her writing has been included in over 30 anthologies.

While many of her novels are written for adults, she has also written the first two books in a juvenile fantasy series called The Brotherhood of the Conch which, like many of her adult novels, takes place in India (as well as other parts of Asia and the Middle East) and draws on the culture and folklore of that region.

Her next work will be a re-telling of the Indian epic, The Mahabharata told from the female characters' perspective. [1]

[edit] Film and television

Her novel, The Mistress of Spices, was released as the film The Mistress of Spices in 2005. It is directed by Paul Mayeda Berges, with a script by Berges and his wife, Gurinder Chadha. The film stars Aishwarya Rai.

In addition, her novel Sister of my Heart was made into a television series in Tamil and aired in India, as Anbulla Snegithiye (Loving Friend). [2]

[edit] Bibliography

  • Poetry
    • Leaving Yuba City (1997)
    • Black Candle (1991)
    • The Reason for Nasturtiums (1990)
  • Anthologies
    • California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century (2004)

[edit] Quote

"Badly and tentatively I began writing early poems. You think I'm being modest but I'm not. I destroyed those sentimental and bad poems recently so no archivist could find them." - Chitra Divakaruni.[citation needed]

[edit] Awards

[edit] References

  • Abcarian, Richard and Marvin Klotz. "Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni." In Literature: The Human Experience, 9th edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006: 1544.

[edit] See also

Literature Portal

[edit] External links

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