One Amazing Thing (Divakaruni)

Author Bio 
• Birth—July 29, 1956
• Where—Kolkata, India
• Education—B.A., Kolkata University; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
• Currently—lives in Houston, Texas and San Jose, Calif.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the author of the bestselling novels Queen of Dreams, Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and The Vine of Desire, and of the prizewinning story collections Arranged Marriage and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. Her writings have appeared in more than 50 magazines, including Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.

Divakaruni was born in India and came to the United States at 19. She put herself through Berkeley doing odd jobs, from working at an Indian boutique to slicing bread in a bakery. She lives in Houston, Texas, and teaches creative writing at the University of Houston. (Adapted from the publisher.)

Extras
Excerpts from a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:

• During graduate school, I used to work in the kitchen of the International House at the University of California, Berkeley. My favorite task was slicing Jell-O.

• I love Chinese food, but my family hates it. So when I'm on book tour I always eat Chinese!

• I almost died on a pilgrimage trip to the Himalayas some years back—but I got a good story out of it. The story is in The Unknown Errors of Our Lives—let's see if readers can figure out which one it is!

• Writing is so central to my life that it leaves little time/desire/need for other interests. I do a good amount of work with domestic violence organizations—I'm on the advisory board of Asians Against Domestic Violence in Houston. I feel very strongly about trying to eradicate domestic violence from our society.

• My favorite ways to unwind are to do yoga, read, and spend time with my family.

• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her answer:

Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. I read this when I was in grad school, and it really made me examine my own role as a woman of color living in the U.S. It made me want to start writing about my own experiences. It made me think that perhaps I, too, had something worthwhile to write about. ("Extras" from Barnes & Noble.)