Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Height, Age, Husband, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

• Chitra while completing her graduation worked in many odd jobs like a babysitter, a store clerk, and as a bread slicer in a bakery.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s childhood picture with her grandfather

• She worked as a lab assistant at the Wright State University.

• She worked as a dining hall assistant at the International House in Berkeley.

• She is an Indian American author, poet and Betty and Gene McDavid professor of writing at the University of Houston creative writing program.

• She also worked as a teacher at Foothill College and Diablo Valley College.

• She started her career as a poet. Her volume of poetry includes Black candle and leaving Yuba City.

• Some of Chitra’s fictional novels include The Mistress of Spices (1997), Sister of My Heart (1999), Palace of Illusion (2008), Before we visit a Goddess (2016), The Forest of Enchantments (2019), The Last Queen (2021), Independence (2022).

Independence by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni book cover

• Her work has been translated into 30 different languages including Dutch, Hebrew, Bengali, Hungarian, Turkish, Hindi and Japanese.

• She has written novels of various genres like historical fiction, magical realism, realistic fiction and fantasy.

• Her stories have been made into films, plays, dance dramas and performed at operas.

• Her novel Sister of My Heart (1999) was adapted into a Tamil TV series Anbulla Snegithiye aired in India.

Mistress of spices (2005) film poster

• Her book Arranger Marriage: stories (1995) were made into a play and was performed at America and Canada. Her novel palace of illusion (2008) was performed in USA and India.

Arranged Marriage (1995) by Chitra Divakaruni book cover

• In 2015, she was named as the 20 most influential Global Indian Women in the Economics Times.

• Divakaruni’s work has been published in many popular magazines like The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.

• She supports various NGO’s like Pratham that supports the education of the underprivileged children in India, Akshaya Patra foundation which provides mid-day-meal to the school students.

• She is the founding member and president of Maitri India, a helpline for South Asian women which help the survivors of domestic violence.