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Surgeon | Surgeons - ENT - Mr Anil Banerjee uksurgeon.org | Kakoli Banerjee, MD, ADC Internal Medicine adclinic.com | - Shri Yogi Hari - Meditations by Chitra... yogihari.com | Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences (SCT) asiapacificstemcells.org |
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (born Chitralekha Banerjee, 1957 - ) is an Indian-American author, poet, and the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the nationally-ranked 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) were adapted into films. Mistress of Spices was short-listed for the Orange Prize. 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, and fantasy.
[edit] BackgroundChitralekha 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] CareerDivakaruni put herself through graduate school by working at a number of odd jobs. She was a babysitter, a store clerk, a bread slicer in a bakery, a dining hall attendant at International House, Berkeley, and a laboratory assistant at Wright State University. She taught at Foothill College in Los Altos, California as well as Diablo Valley College. She now lives in Texas, where she teaches at The University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Divakaruni is a co-founder and former president of a helpline for South Asian women who are dealing with various forms of domestic abuse. The organization, Maitri, was founded in 1991.Divakaruni serves on its advisory board and on the advisory board of a similar organization in Houston, Daya. She also serves on the Houston board of Pratham, a non profit organization working to bring literacy to disadvantaged Indian children. [edit] Works[edit] Fiction and PoetryDivakaruni'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 20 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Indonesian 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. [1] Divakaruni's first collection of stories, Arranged Marriage, won an American Book Award, a PEN Josephine Miles Award, and a Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and greatly increased her visibility. Her major novels include The Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart and Queen of Dreams. While many of her novels are written for adults, she has also written a young adult fantasy series called The Brotherhood of the Conch which, like 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. The third and final book of the series, Shadowland, was published in 2009. Divakaruni's latest novel for adults, The Palace of Illusions is a re-telling of the Indian epic, The Mahabharata from a female character's perspective. [2] [edit] Film and televisionHer 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). [3] [edit] Bibliography
[edit] Quote"The Art of dissolving boundaries is what living is all about." [4] [edit] Awards
[edit] See also[edit] References
[edit] External links[edit] Biographies[edit] Miscellaneous
Categories: Indian novelists | Indian writers | Indian women writers | American novelists | American short story writers | People from Kolkata | University of Calcutta alumni | Asian American writers | Indian American writers | Wright State University alumni | Bengali writers | American Hindus | 1956 births | Living people | University of Houston faculty | University of California, Berkeley alumni | Americans of Indian descent | American women writers | Women novelists | |||||||||||||||||
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