Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

India, 1947. In a rural village in Bengal live three sisters, daughters of a well-respected doctor. Priya: intelligent and idealistic, resolved to follow in her father's footsteps and become a doctor, though society frowns on it. Deepa: the beauty, determined to make a marriage that will bring her family joy and status. Jamini: devout, sharp-eyed, and a talented quiltmaker, with deeper passions than she reveals. Theirs is a home of love and safety, a refuge from the violent events taking shape in the nation. Then their father is killed during a riot, and even their neighbors turn against them, bringing the events of their country closer to home. As Priya determinedly pursues her career goal, Deepa falls deeply in love with a Muslim, causing her to break with her family. And Jamini attempts to hold her family together, even as she secretly longs for her sister's fiancé. When the partition of India is officially decided, a drastic--and dangerous--change is in the air. India is now for Hindus, Pakistan for Muslims. The sisters find themselves separated from one another, each on different paths. They fear for what will happen to not just themselves, but each other.

As her old sister is about to marry, 12-year-old Neela Sen knows her parents will soon arrange a betrothal for her. But when her father goes to Calcutta to secretly investigate India's growing independence movement and doesn't return, Neela realizes she must do the unexpected--take matters into her own hands. Illustrations.

WINNER of the 2022 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WORKING WOMEN AWARD for BEST FICTION OF THE YEAR! LONGLISTED for 2022 DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD! She rose from commoner to become the last reigning queen of India's Sikh Empire. In this dazzling novel, based on true-life events, bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni presents the unforgettable story of Jindan, who transformed herself from daughter of the royal kennel keeper to powerful monarch. Sharp-eyed, stubborn, and passionate, Jindan was known for her beauty. When she caught the eye of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, she was elevated to royalty, becoming his youngest and last queen--and his favorite. And when her son, barely six years old, unexpectedly inherited the throne, Jindan assumed the regency. She transformed herself from pampered wife to warrior ruler, determined to protect her people and her son's birthright from the encroaching British Empire. Defying tradition, she stepped out of the zenana, cast aside the veil, and conducted state business in public, inspiring her subjects in two wars. Her power and influence were so formidable that the British, fearing an uprising, robbed the rebel queen of everything she had, but nothing crushed her indomitable will. An exquisite love story of a king and a commoner, a cautionary tale about loyalty and betrayal, a powerful parable of the indestructible bond between mother and child, and an inspiration for our times, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's novel brings alive one of the most fearless women of the nineteenth century, one whose story cries out to be told.

The Ramayana, one of the world’s greatest epics, is also a tragic love story. In this brilliant retelling, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni places Sita at the centre of the novel: this is Sita’s version. The Forest of Enchantments is also a very human story of some of the other women in the epic, often misunderstood and relegated to the margins: Kaikeyi, Surpanakha, Mandodari. A powerful comment on duty, betrayal, infidelity and honour, it is also about women’s struggle to retain autonomy in a world that privileges men, as Chitra transforms an ancient story into a gripping, contemporary battle of wills. While the Ramayana resonates even today, she makes it more relevant than ever, in the underlying questions in the novel: How should women be treated by their loved ones? What are their rights in a relationship? When does a woman need to stand up and say, ‘Enough!’

A REIMAGINING OF THE WORLD-FAMOUS INDIAN EPIC, THE MAHABHARAT—TOLD FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF AN AMAZING WOMAN. Relevant to today’s war-torn world, The Palace of Illusions takes us back to a time that is half history, half myth, and wholly magical. Narrated by Panchaali, the wife of the legendary Pandavas brothers in the Mahabharat, the novel gives us a new interpretation of this ancient tale. The Palace of Illusions traces the princess Panchaali's life, beginning with her birth in fire and following her spirited balancing act as a woman with five husbands who have been cheated out of their father’s kingdom. Panchaali is swept into their quest to reclaim their birthright, remaining at their side through years of exile and a terrible civil war involving all the important kings of India. Meanwhile, we never lose sight of her strategic duels with her mother-in-law, her complicated friendship with the enigmatic Krishna, or her secret attraction to the mysterious man who is her husbands' most dangerous enemy. Panchaali is a fiery female redefining for us a world of warriors, gods, and the ever-manipulating hands of fate.

A beautiful, powerful new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of Sister of My Heart and The Mistress of Spices about three generations of mothers and daughters who must discover their greatest source of strength in one another—a masterful, brilliant tale of a family both united and torn apart by ambition and love. The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but her family’s situation means college is an impossible dream. Then an influential woman from Kolkata takes Sabitri under her wing, but her generosity soon proves dangerous after the girl makes a single, unforgivable misstep. Years later, Sabitri’s own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother’s choices, flees abroad with her political refugee lover—but the America she finds is vastly different from the country she’d imagined. As the marriage crumbles and Bela is forced to forge her own path, she unwittingly imprints her own child, Tara, with indelible lessons about freedom, heartbreak, and loyalty that will take a lifetime to unravel. In her latest novel, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores the complex relationships between mothers and daughters, and the different kinds of love that bind us across generations. Before We Visit the Goddess captures the gorgeous complexity of these multi-generational and transcontinental bonds, sweeping across the twentieth century from the countryside of Bengal, India, to the streets of Houston, Texas—an extraordinary journey told through a sparkling symphony of voices.

An acclaimed novel by the author of The Mistress of Spices , and Before We Visit the Goddess . Jhumpa Lahiri " One Amazing Thing collapses the walls dividing characters and cultures; what endures is a chorus of voices in one single room." Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair. When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine characters together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive. There's little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, "one amazing thing" from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. And as their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self-discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression itself. From Chitra Divakaruni, author of such finely wrought, bestselling novels as Sister of My Heart, The Palace of Illusions , and The Mistress of Spices , comes her most compelling and transporting story to date. One Amazing Thing is a passionate creation about survival -- and about the reasons to survive.

A classic work of magical realism, this bestselling novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni tells the story of Tilo, a young woman from another time who has a gift for the mystical art of spices. Now immortal, and living in the gnarled and arthritic body of an old woman, Tilo has set up shop in Oakland, California, where she administers curatives to her customers. But when she's surprised by an unexpected romance with a handsome stranger, she must choose between everlasting life and the vicissitudes of modern society. Spellbinding and hypnotizing, The Mistress of Spices is a tale of joy, sorrow, and one special woman's magical powers.

C'è una vecchia signora indiana in una botteguccia di Oakland, California. Con le mani nodose sfiora polveri e semi, foglie e bacche alla ricerca del sapore più squisito, o del sortilegio più sottile. Ha gli occhi forse un po' troppo vivi quando guarda negli animi e nel futuro, e l'indole forse un po' troppo veemente per dispensare con distacco le arti del proprio potere. È Tilo, la Maga delle Spezie. La sua storia inizia in uno sperduto villaggio indiano dove la rapiscono i pirati, attratti dai suoi arcani e misteriosi poteri, per portarla su un'isola stregata e meravigliosa. Lì Tilo apprende la magia delle spezie che in America le permetterà di aiutare chi, come lei, si è lasciato l'India alle spalle. Quando entra in negozio la moglie di Ahuja, con i lividi in faccia e la morte nel cuore, Tilo sceglie un soffio di curcuma per consolare e un grumo di zenzero per cercare una strada. Per Jagjit, dal turbante verde pappagallo e le orecchie piene d'insulti, quello che ci vuole è un osso scuro di cannella per vincere i pregiudizi degli altri bambini e chiodi di garofano per risvegliare la compassione. E se Haroun fruga la città di notte sul suo taxi nuovo di zecca, servono semi di cumino tagliati con cura per allontanare il pericolo e polvere di mango per un amore duraturo.

Action, adventure, and magic are combined in this exotic, compelling quest fantasy by a distinguished author of adult fiction and poetry. Set in contemporary India, the story opens in a poor section of Calcutta, where 12-year-old Anand is entrusted with a conch shell imbued with mystical powers. Anand's task is to return the shell to its rightful home high in the Himalayas. Will he succeed? This is literary fiction of the highest order, as well as an adventure story that is almost impossible to put down.

Anju is the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family; her cousin Sudha is the daughter of the black sheep of the family. Sudha is as beautiful, tenderhearted, and serious as Anju is plain, whip-smart, and defiant. Yet since the day they were born, Sudha and Anju have been bonded in ways even their mothers cannot comprehend. The cousins' bond is shattered, however, when Sudha learns a dark family secret. Urged into arranged marriages, their lives take sudden, opposite turns: Sudha becomes the dutiful daughter-in-law of a rigid small-town household, while Anju goes to America with her new husband and learns to live her own life of secrets. Then tragedy strikes them both, and the women discover that, despite the distance that has grown between them, they have only each other to turn to. Set in the two worlds of India and America, this is an exceptionally moving novel of love, friendship, and compelling courage.

Aranżowane małżeństwa to zbiór opowiadań, którego bohaterkami są kobiety, stojące w sytuacji rozdarcia pomiędzy dwoma światami. Doświadczają poczucia zarówno wolności, jak i schwytania w pułapkę różnic kulturowych i starają się odkryć swoją prawdziwą tożsamość. Dla tych kobiet możliwość zmiany, rozpoczęcia wszystkiego od nowa jest jednocześnie przerażająca, i obiecująca - niczym ocean oddzielający je od domu w Indiach. Poczynając od młodej mężatki, której baśniowa wizja Kalifornii rozpada się na kawałki, gdy jej mąż zostaje zamordowany, a ona sama musi stawić czoło przyszłości, a kończąc na rozwiedzionej kobiecie w średnim wieku, która marzy o doskonałym życiu. Divakaruni stworzyła jedenaście niezapomnianych portretów kobiet, które wkroczyły na drogę przemian. W swej książce Divakaruni porusza wiele różnorodnych problemów, takich jak rasizm, różnice społeczne, aborcja czy rozwód. Autorka mówi, że tworząc opowiadania, czerpie ze swojej wyobraźni oraz z doświadczeń innych ludzi.