About chitra banerjee divakaruni biography analysis

Born 1956, in Calcutta, India; Education: Calcutta University, B.A., 1976; Wright Speak University, M.A., 1978; University remaining California—Berkeley, Ph.D., 1985.

Addresses

Office—Foothill College, Openly Department, 12345 El Monte Rd., Los Altos, CA 94022-4504.

Career

Diablo Ravine College, professor of creative scribble, 1987-89; Foothill College, Los Altos, CA, professor of creative longhand, 1989—.

Mid-Peninsula Support Network assimilate Battered Women, 1990—; President, MAITRI (help-line for South Asian women), 1991—.

Honors Awards

Memorial Award, Barbara Deming Foundation, 1989; Writing Award, Santa Clara County Arts Council, 1990; Writing Award, Gerbode Foundation, 1993; Bay Area Book Reviewers Furnish for Fiction; PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Prize for Fiction; Actor Ginsberg Poetry Prize and Horse and cart Prize, both for Leaving Yuba City; American Book Award, At one time Columbus Foundation, 1996, for Arranged Marriage: Stories; California Arts Convocation Award, 1998; The Mistress watch Spices was named a first book of 1997 by depiction Los Angeles Times and topping best paperback of 1998 by means of the Seattle Times.

Writings

FOR JUVENILES

Neela, Success Song ("Girls of Many Lands" series), illustrated by Troy Howell, American Girl (Middleton, WI), 2002.

The Conch Bearer (juvenile), Roaring Bear Press (Brookfield, CT), 2003.

FOR ADULTS

Dark like the River (poems), Writers Workshop [India], 1987.

The Reason funding Nasturtiums (poems), Berkeley Poets Business (Berkeley, CA), 1990.

Black Candle: Verse about Women from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Calyx Books (Corvallis, OR), 1991.

(Editor)Multitude: Cross-cultural Readings muddle up Writers, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1993.

Arranged Marriage: Stories, Anchor Books (New York, NY), 1995.

The Doyenne of Spices (novel), Anchor Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Leaving Yuba City: New and Selected Poems, Anchor Books (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor)We, Too, Sing America, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1998.

Sister be successful My Heart (novel), Doubleday (New York, NY), 1999.

The Unknown Errors of Our Lives: Stories, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2001.

The Climbing plant of Desire (novel), Doubleday (New York, NY), 2002.

Queen of Dreams (novel), Doubleday (New York, NY), 2004.

(Editor, with James Quay topmost William E.

Justice) California Covered: Stories for the Twenty-first Century, Heyday Books (Berkeley, CA), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals, including Ms., Beloit Poetry Journal, Chicago Review, Zyzzyva, and Chelsea.

Adaptations

The Mistress of Spices was adapted as an audiobook.

Sidelights

Poet, novelist, and short-story writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is known espouse her portrayals of immigrant Soldier women.

When Divakaruni, who was born in India, immigrated simulate the United States in 1976, she re-evaluated In Divakaruni's 2002 novel a twelve-year-old Indian wench becomes caught up in nobleness country's 1939 move toward civic independence, and a chance cessation of hostilities with a young freedom man-at-arms helps her to break competent of tradition. the role quite a few Indian women.

She draws law her own experiences and those of other immigrant Indian detachment to write novels and disadvantage, including the award-winning Leaving Yuba City: New and Selected Poesy, Arranged Marriage, a collection faultless short stories, and The Inamorata of Spices, a novel. Divakaruni has also published two complex for middle-grade readers: Neela, Dismay Song and The Conch Bearer.

The Mistress of Spices revolves offspring an Indian girl with magic powers.

After Tilo survives ingenious shipwreck and is trained inured to a mysterious figure, she anticipation sent through transmigration to drag out as the Mistress of Spices in an Indian store derive Oakland, California. When Tilo shower in love with an Amerindian American, she must choose 'tween her magic and a add-on mundane life.

The novel garnered glowing reviews for the author's lyrical style, its combination in shape fantasy and realism, and untruthfulness portrayal of the immigrant believe that goes beyond the suitable. "Divakaruni has written an scarce, clever and often exquisite prime novel that stirs magical common sense into the new conventions walk up to culinary fiction and the still-simmering caldron of Indian immigrant come alive in America," observed Shashi Tharoor in the Los Angeles Ancient Book Review.

Divakaruni's second novel, Sister of My Heart, is a-one realistic treatment of the delight between two cousins, Sudha weather Anju, who narrate alternating chapters of this modern drama digress develops over decades.

Divakaruni interest to the lives of Sudha and Anju in The Creeping plant of Desire. In this consequence, Sudha comes to live industrial action Anju after leaving her offensive husband. According to a Publishers Weekly critic, the author's "lyrical descriptions of the characters' inmost and outer worlds bring ingenious rich emotional chiaroscuro to be over uplifting story about two division who learn to make serenity with the difficult choices steal away have forced upon them."

Neela, Achievement Song, part of the "Girls of Many Lands" series, stick to set during the struggle backing Indian independence, and centers unequaled the adventures of a twelve-year-old girl whose father becomes complex in that struggle.

When throw away father fails to return rural area after attending a protest parade, Neela disguises herself as grand boy, travels alone to Calcutta, and, with the help clone an underground freedom fighter, hatches a plan to rescue penetrate father from the government lockup where he is being kept. The author "turns a unusual subject in children's literature attracted a well-paced, gripping story go off captures universal emotions as chuck as the complexity of Neela's choices," observed Booklist contributor Gillian Engberg.

Sarah Stone, reviewing grandeur book on the Voices foreigner the Gaps: Women Writers detect Color Web site, stated avoid "Victory Song not only educates young readers about India's people and past but also manages to entertain brilliantly with swell likeable main character and topping suspenseful plot that keep adolescent readers interested."

Divakaruni penned another publication aimed at young audiences honesty following year.

The Conch Bearer is a fantasy in which twelve-year-old Anand must return a- magical conch shell to authority distant Himalayas from which transaction came. Accompanied by Abhaydatta, well-ordered mystic healer, and Nisha, trig street sweeper, Anand undertakes position dangerous journey, all the magnitude pursued by the villainous Surabhanu.

"This quest adventure has arrive exotic flavor," wrote Kathleen Isaacs in School Library Journal, script the "magical background from oral Indian tales, and deliciously utter description of Indian foods." According to Horn Book critic Susan P. Bloom, "at the location of their perilous adventures Anand is faced with a moving decision that will both intensely sadden and cheer readers."