Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Literary Analysis

Indianness in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s ‘MISTRESS OF SPICES’
A.Phaniraja Kumar
Introduction: Of all the genus of Indian English literature, fiction is the most developed and well received one in the Post-Modern period both at home and abroad. With the Arundhati Ro’s Booker Prize Award winning novel, “The God of Small Things” (1999), Indian English novel has won international recognition. In the Post-Colonial era, the socio-economic scenario across the globe is fast changing. Globalization has paved the way for a greater cross-cultural symbiosis. This has in diasporic literature. From this emerged Multicultural literature as sub-gems. It refers to the corpus of literary works that embraces many cultures where culture is an integral part of the story. It revaluates the experiences of different ethnic and marginalized communities. It portrays racial or ethnic groups without bias, alongside the white Anglo-Saxon majority. Multicultural elements inform the works of such women writers as Anitha Desai, Bharathi Mukherjee,

All are diasporic novelists. Indian born Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni brought new perspectives to contemporary women’s writings in the USA with a series of rightly praised novels and short stories. Positioned as the interface of various cultures-originally from Kolkata and now residing in Houston, Texas-Divakaruni is herself the embodiment of the themes prevalent in her writings. They are about women, immigration, the South-Asian experience, history, myth, magic and diversity. Her literature allows her for a variety of readings such as feminism, transnationalism, multiculturalism, post colonialism, hybridity and magic realism. So, this paper analyses Chitra Banerjee’s ‘The Mistress of Spices’ (1997) as a document of magic realism. The term Magic Realism was first applied to literature