Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
ChitraBanerjeeDivakaruni.JPG
Born Chitralekha Banerjee
1956
Kolkata, India
Occupation Novelist, professor, poet, essayist, short story writer, author, fiction writer, nonfiction writer, children's fiction writer, young adult fiction writer, book reviewer, columnist
Nationality India, United States
Genre poetry, short stories, novels; fantasy, young adult, magical realism, historical fiction
Notable works Before We Visit the Goddess;'Leaving Yuba City; Arranged Marriage; The Mistress of Spices; Sister of My Heart; Palace of Illusions; The Conch Bearer; One Amazing Thing; Oleander Girl; The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming.
Notable awards Ginsberg Poetry Prize; Pushcart Prize; LA Times Best Books of 1997; American Book Award; PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award; South Asian Literary Association Distinguished Author Award; Light of India Award; Premio Scanno Award (Italy)

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (born Chitralekha Banerjee, 1956[1]) is an Indian-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 1995, and 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. Mistress of Spices was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Currently, Sister of My Heart, Oleander Girl, Palace of Illusions, and One Amazing Thing have all been optioned to be made into movies or TV serials.

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.

Background

Divakaruni was born in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. She received her B.A. from the University of Calcutta in 1976.[citation needed] That same year, she went to the United States to attend Wright State University where she received a master's degree.[citation needed] She received a PhD in English from the University of California, Berkeley in 1985 (Christopher Marlowe was the subject of her doctoral dissertation).[citation needed]

Career

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 at Foothill College in Los Altos, California and Diablo Valley College. She now lives and teaches in Texas, where she is the McDavid professor of Creative Writing at the nationally ranked University of Houston Creative Writing Program.

Divakaruni is a co-founder and former president of Maitri, a helpline founded in 1991 for South Asian women dealing with domestic abuse. Divakaruni serves on its advisory board and on the advisory board of a similar organisation in Houston, Daya. She also serves on the emeritus board of Pratham Houston, a non-profit organisation working to bring literacy to disadvantaged Indian children[citation needed].

Works

Fiction and poetry

Divakaruni's work has been published in over 50 magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker and her writing has been included in over 50 anthologies including the Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Prize Stories, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. Her fiction has been translated into 29 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Indonesian, Bengali, Turkish and Japanese.

Divakaruni began her writing career as a poet. Her two latest volumes of poetry are Black Candle and Leaving Yuba City. She won several awards for her poems, such as a Gerbode Award, a Barbara Deming Memorial Award and an Allen Ginsberg Award.

Divakaruni's first collection of stories Arranged Marriage, which won an American Book Award, a PEN Josephine Miles Award, and a Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, greatly increased her visibility. 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. Although the greater part of her novels are written for adults, she has also written a young adult fantasy series called The Brotherhood of the Conch which, unlike many of her adult novels, takes place wholly 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. It was listed in the Publisher's Weekly Best Books of the Year, Booklist Editor's Choice, Pacific Northwest Young Reader's Choice Award Master List and the Rebecca Caudill Award Master List. 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[2] is a re-telling of the Indian epic The Mahabharata from Draupadi's perspective.[3]

Film, television, theater and opera

Divakaruni's novel The Mistress of Spices was released as a film of the same name in 2005. It was directed by Paul Mayeda Berges, with a script by Berges and his wife, Gurinder Chadha. The film starred Aishwarya Rai and Dylan McDermott.

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).[4]

Her story Clothes from the collection Arranged Marriage was adapted into a play and performed by the Sacramento Theater Company in 2010 and won an award. It is being performed in May 2006 by Ryerson University in Toronto.

In 2013 Divakaruni wrote a chamber opera for the Houston Grand Opera titled River of Light about the life of an Indian woman in Houston. It was performed by Houston Grand Opera (HGOCo) in 2014 and received excellent reviews. It was performed by Festival Opera in the San Francisco Bay area in 2015.

Her novel One Amazing Thing has currently been optioned by the Hollywood production company Gillen Group.

Personal life

Divakaruni lives in Houston with her husband Murthy. She has two sons, Anand and Abhay (whose names she has used in her children's novels)..[5]

Works

Fiction

Young adult and children's

  • Neela: Victory Song (2002)
  • Grandma and the Great Gourd (2013) (children's picture book)

Brotherhood of the Conch series

Poetry

  • The Reason for Nasturtiums (1990)
  • Black Candle (1991)
  • Leaving Yuba City (1997)
  • Indian Movie, New Jersey

Tiger Mask RItual

Anthologies

  • Multitude:Cross Cultural Readings for Writers (1993)
  • We Too Sing America (1997)
  • California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century (2004)

Awards

  • 1995: The American Book Award for Arranged Marriage: Stories
  • 1995: PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for Arranged Marriage: Stories
  • 1995: Bay Area Book Reviewers Award for Fiction for Arranged Marriage: Stories
  • 1997: The Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize and the Pushcart Prize for poems in Leaving Yuba City: New and Selected Poems
  • 1997: Mistress of Spices shortlisted for The Orange Prize
  • 1997: Los Angeles Times Best Books of 1997 for Mistress of Spices
  • 1998: Seattle Times Best Paperbacks of 1998 for Mistress of Spices
  • 1999: "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter" included in Best American Short Stories
  • 2003: "The Lives of Strangers" included in O'Henry Prize Stories
  • 2003: Pushcart Prize for "The Lives of Strangers"
  • 2007: Distinguished Writer Award from the South Asian Literary Association
  • 2008: University of California at International House Berkeley Alumna of the Year Award
  • 2009: Cultural Jewel Award from the Indian Culture Center, Houston
  • 2011: Light of India Jury's Award for Journalism and Literature
  • 2015: Premio Scanno Award for Literature, Italy.

See also

Further reading

  • Abcarian, Richard and Marvin Klotz. "Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni." In Literature: The Human Experience, 9th edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006: 1544.
  • Aldana, Frederick Luis. "Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: The Unknown Errors of Our Lives." World Literature Today. University of Oklahoma. 1 January 2002.
  • 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. http://samarmagazine.org/archive/articles/59
  • 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.

External links

References

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  2. ↑ [1]
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ [2]
  5. ↑ http://www.chitradivakaruni.com/about/background
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