Chitra Divakaruni: On Capturing the Struggle for Independence

Chitra Divakaruni is an award-winning writer, activist, and teacher, and the author of 21 books such as Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, Before We Visit the Goddess, Palace of Illusions, The Forest of Enchantments, and The Last Queen. Her newest novel, Independence, depicts the experiences of three sisters in strife-torn Calcutta as India frees itself from the British yoke.

Her work has been published in over 100 magazines and anthologies and translated into 30 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Bengali, Hungarian, Turkish, Hindi and Japanese. Her work been made into films, plays and dance dramas, and performed as operas.

Her awards include an American Book Award, a PEN Josephine Miles award, a Premio Scanno, and a Light of India award. In 2015 The Economic Times included her in their List of 20 Most Influential Global Indian Women. She is the McDavid professor of Creative Writing in the internationally acclaimed Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston and lives in Houston with her husband Murthy.

Divakaruni has been an activist in the fields of education and domestic violence and has been closely associated with the following nonprofits: Pratham, which educates underprivileged children in India, and Daya and Maitri, which assist survivors of domestic violence in starting life anew. Find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

In this post, Chitra discusses the human side of India’s fight for independence in her new historical novel, Independence, her hope for readers, and more!

Name: Chitra Divakaruni
Literary agent: Sandra Dijkstra
Book title: Independence
Publisher: William Morrow
Release date: January 17, 2023
Genre/category: Historical novel
Previous titles: Arranged Marriage, Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, Palace of Illusions, Queen of Dreams, Oleander Girl, The Conch Bearer Before We Visit the Goddess, Forest of Enchantments, The Last Queen
Elevator pitch for the book: Set during the partition of British India in 1947, a time when neighbor was pitted against neighbor and families were torn apart, this is the sweeping story of three sisters caught up in events beyond their control, their unbreakable bond, and their struggle against powerful odds.

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1947, the birth of Independent India, is an important moment, both dramatic and painful, in world history. Almost a million people died in the process of India becoming free from British rule. I want people to know of this and feel the immensity of that struggle. Also, I wanted to examine how this affected women. So, I wrote about how it forced three young women to grow, change, and learn what independence truly means, both for a country and for an individual.

There are almost no novels in English set during Partition in East Bengal, where I was born. I wanted to document the turmoil and tragedies that took place in that time and that geography. My grandfather and mother had told me powerful, harrowing, and heroic stories of that time. I wanted to weave some of those into the book before they were lost.

It took about three years. The ideas changed somewhat as my conception of the three sisters’ characters took clearer shape. I understood that this was going to be a love story in addition to being a historical adventure. I realized that both Hindus and Muslims had to play a part in my novel, as they did in real life. So, I created some additional characters.

Not really, though there was much that I was grateful for. The book was acquired early on by William Morrow, while I was still writing it. This was a great help as I worked closely with my wonderful editor, Lucia Macro, who gave me valuable feedback through the process. When I was almost done with the manuscript, there was a great deal of interest in it from Indian publishers, and they sent in offers to Morrow.

HarperCollins India, which had published my previous novel, The Last Queen, became my Indian publisher for Independence. I am very grateful that the process went smoothly and that there was so much interest in this important story of India’s freedom.

When I was almost three-quarters of the way through writing Independence, I realized that the alternating first person narration technique (alternating among the voices of the three sisters) wasn’t doing what I needed it to do. I needed it to be the story of a family AND the story of a nation. I had to rewrite the entire book in third person so I could bring in the larger perspective of what was going on in the country.

I hope they will understand more of the complicated history of an important nation, a history which is part of the larger story of decolonization. I hope they will understand that freedom (which we so often take for granted) often exacts a heavy price. I hope they will think about what independence meant for women in the world then (1940s) and what it means now.

And finally, because it is a love story, too, I hope they will appreciate the complicated and unexpected path love sometimes takes.

Read. Read. Read. Read like a writer, with close attention to technique and detail. I never studied in a formal creative writing program (though now I teach in a wonderful one at the University of Houston). Reading great writers carefully, with a pen in my hand to mark important passages, helped me become a writer.

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