Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s name is synonymous with Indian American fiction. She needs little or no introduction. This is one author who has addressed this subject with readers of all ages, be it school children, young adult or adult. Her books are insightful, the themes are universal and the characters are introspective.
In honor of Chitra Divakaruni's two new books launched this month Suprose will feature her as author of the month yet another time.
Her novel Oleander Girl is already getting rave reviews. She also has a second book out this month for young readers aged 5-8 titled "Grandma And The Great Gourd" - A Bengali Folktale.
Here is also a Tête-à-Tête with Chitra Divakaruni which was featured in Suprose July 2011
http://suprose.blogspot.com/2011/07/tete-tete-with-chitra-divakaruni.htmlI recently had the pleasure of interviewing Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni for the Wall Street Journal for an article at this link.
The full transcript from the WSJ interview is below --
What inspires you to write? What do you love most about
writing?
What I like is that writing is always new, always
challenging. What I imagine is always beyond what I can reach. There’s so much
to learn. Reminds me of those lines by Tennyson:
'Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that
untravel'd world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move.’
It is very hard for a writer to switch hats from writing for
10 year old audiences to YA, to writing literary fiction for adults. How do you
do it?
Each book is a separate entity for me. When I’m writing it,
I enter its world and inhabit its vocabulary.
I forget, as it were, that I ever wrote anything
else. I have a lot of respect and love for children’s books, and some very good
models (Phillip Pullman, particularly, that have made me realize that literary
fiction can be written for all ages). I think all this helps me write these
different kinds of books.
Who or what was the inspiration for Oleander Girl?
I wanted to write a book about the important of
tolerance—tolerance for people who look different, have different religions and
ideologies. That led me to place the novel in 2002, a little after 9/11 and
during the Godhra riots, two horrific events-- and their aftermath--rising out
of intolerance.
As I wrote the book, I realized that parts of it
were woven from my family history, and Korobi’s grandfather took on some
characteristics of my own grandfather.
How long did it take you to write it, as compared to your
other books?
It took me about two and a half years. That’s what it takes
me, usually, unless I have to do mega-research, as well I was writing Palace of
Illusions, which is based on the The Mahabharat. I had to study several
different versions of the epic before I could write anything. For Oleander, the
research was important, but it was more contemporary—New York geography and the
character of its different boroughs, for instance; or the properties of the
Oleander, which is severly poisonous.
What do you love most about it?
I love how in Oleander Girl characters grew and developed in
ways I had not anticipated. The chauffeur Asif, for instance, was meant to be a
minor character but ends up to be extremely important, both plot-wise and
thematically. He kind of took over his scenes. I love the organic energy that’s
released in a novel when a character does that.
You mention in your FB page that a passage from OG was
inspired by the painter Raza. Which passage was it? Please explain why the
painting evoked this particular passage?
This was when Korobi visits Mrs. Bose, her mother-in-law to
be, the owner of a leading art gallery in Kolkata. I love contemporary Indian
art, and I imagined that gallery to be filled with paintings by my favorite
artists, Raza among them.
How did you find Korobi, she is such a steadfast person,
yet, a very adapting personality? A very complex yet lovable
woman…
I imagined her—she’s not like anyone I know, and in some
intrinsic ways, she is different from the women in my other books. I wanted to
create a character who would embody the clash between the old and new India.
Someone both vulnerable and strong. I don’t really know where she came from!
It’s a mystery to me.
It is not fair to ask you to pick your favorite character
from a book… So, Who was your most challenging character in OG? How did this
one come to be?
I think Korobi’s mother-in-law to be, Mrs. Bose, was my most
challenging character. I wanted her to be the antagonist in the book, (or one
of them, at least). I wanted to give her some complicated traits—for instance,
she cares too much about what society thinks of her, she is manipulative, and
she is disapproving of Korobi; but I wanted the reader to understand why she
was this way, what hurtful experiences in her past had led her to this place. I
wanted the reader to be torn between compassion and outrage.
Overall what did you find most challenging about this novel,
as compared to your other works…
Writing about religious difference and the violence it can
lead to—that was a tough one. I wanted to make sure the theme developed
naturally, through the personalities of the characters. I wanted to make sure I
wasn’t heavy handed.
Probably this one and my previous one, One Amazing Thing.
This one because I wanted to write the story of an
individual (Korobi) in a way that mirrors a particular juncture in the life of
a country (India). I wanted to show that a personal story (who Korobi’s mother
falls in love with, and the repercussions of that) can have political
significance.
One Amazing Thing was challenging in a different way—that
novel had nine protagonists, all equally important. I had to move in and out of
all their heads as dexterously as I could manage!
When Arranged Marriage was first published you were one of a
handful or Indian American writers, it was all very new. In today’s landscape,
there are many writers of Indian origin and their works span almost all genres…
Your thoughts on how easy/difficult it was then and now to be successful…
It’s never really easy to be successful as a writer when
you’re trying to write literary fiction—you’ve already limited your readership
limited by that choice. As I’ve written more, and as other Indian American
voices have grown around me, I strive harder to find experiences that are
unique yet a meaningful and resonant part of the American story.
What books do you currently have on your reading pile?
I’m reading the Ramayana—that’s my next project, to write a
novel that reimagines that epic, narrated by Sita, one of the major women
characters in the epic.
Which authors do you go to for solace during a tough moment
during your writing process?
I go to the people whose books taught me how to write:
Maxine Hong Kingston, Toni Morrison, Anita Desai, Amitav Ghosh, Margaret
Atwood, Tim O’Brien, Sandra Cisneros, Rabindranath Tagore.
I re-read them, I re-learn, and am
re-inspired.
I have always loved this author and cannot wait to lose myself in her new book. She inspires me to carry on, validates the demons perched beneath my fingers, and generally steadies my forever questioning need to write. Thank you for this interview.
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