The Mistress of Spices
by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
List Price: $12.95
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0385482388
Publisher: Anchor Books
"There is a certain spirituality, not necessarily religious--the essence
of spirituality--that is at the heart of the Indian psyche, that finds
the divine in everything."
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni,
a devout Hindu, attended a convent school in India run by Irish nuns before
she came to the United States in 1976. While most of Sister
of My Heart takes place in Calcutta, Divakaruni explores the immigrant
experience through Indian women in American cities in both The Mistress
of Spices and Arranged Marriage.
Whether set in India or America,
Divakaruni's plots feature Indian-born women torn between old and new
world values. She uses her sharp insight and skilled use of story, plot,
and lyrical description to give readers a many-layered look at her characters
and their respective worlds, which are filled with fear, hope, and discovery.
Whether in California, Chicago, or Calcutta, women learn to adapt and,
as a result, discover their own sense of self amidst joy and heartbreak.
Divakaruni did not write fiction
until she finished her doctoral studies in English at the University of
California at Berkeley. In speaking of her path to fiction writing, she
notes that academic writing didn't "touch my heart. It had nothing to
do with my real life as an immigrant woman in America." Instead, she says
of her fiction: "It was important for me to start writing about my own
reality and that of my community."
In addition to her novels
and short stories, Divakaruni has published four other volumes of poetry,
including the Award-winning Leaving Yuba City, which includes a
story, awarded a Pushcart Prize, and a story which won an Allen Ginsberg
Prize. Arranged Marriage was awarded the PEN Oakland Josephine
Miles Prize for Fiction, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award for Fiction,
and an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. The
Mistress of Spices was shortlisted for the Orange Prize (England)
and chosen by the Los Angeles Times as one of the best books of 1997.
Unlike many of the heroines
in her works, Divakaruni chose her own husband, and she praises his support
for the work she does. They have two children.
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