Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Books In Order

Publication Order of Anju and Sudha Books

Publication Order of Brotherhood of the Conch Books

Publication Order of Girls of Many Lands Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a teacher, poet, activist, and award-winning novelist. She made her debut when she published “Reasons for Nastruriums,” a collection of poetry in 1990.

She has been writing ever since in different literary formats including novels, picture books, and collections of short stories. Divakaruni now has more than 21 works to her name across these different platforms, even though she is most known for her “Brotherhood of the Conch” series of novels.

The author has developed a reputation for writing novels about life in modern India and the United States, Most of her works usually center on mythology, women’s experiences, magical realism, history, and immigration.
Another critical thing to note about Chitra is that she writes for both adult readers and children. The author’s works have been published in more than 100 anthologies and magazines.

Some of the prestigious publications where her work has been published include Oprah’s O magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Elle, The New Yorker, Verve, Vogue O Henry Prize Stories, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best American Short Stories, and The New Yorker.
Her bestselling works have been translated into more than two dozen languages including Japanese, Dutch, Hindi, Hebrew, Turkish, Bengali, and Hungarian.

Banerjee Divakaruni was born in Calcutta India and used to spend most of her summers visiting Bengal and her maternal grandfather. He used to regal her with stories from epics such as the “Ramayana” and the “Mahabharat” among many other Bengali tales.
As such, her grandfather would turn out to be a huge influence on her writing as much of the fairytales, folktales, customs, and settings in her works are inspired by the many stories he used to tell.

Chitra Divakaruni has also been influenced by the epics and two of the most ambitious of her novels “The Forest of Enchantments” and “The Place of Illusions” are retellings of Hindu epics.

She always felt that women in the works she used to read and listen to were portrayed as too docile and meek to her liking. As such, she decided to give them a voice in her many novels that have garnered critical acclaim.
She left India and headed for the United States in 1976 where she got her masters in English and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.

Following her graduation from college, she published “The Mistress of Spices” her debut novel in 1997 and has never looked back since.

In addition to her writing, Divakaruni is also a professor at the University of Houston Creative Writing program as a McDavid Creative Writing Professor. Several of Chitra Banerjee’s students have published critically acclaimed fiction that has gone on to win some significant awards.

She is also a regular reviewer in the promotion/tenure of professors in creative writing programs in many American universities and colleges. Divakaruni also serves on the San Francisco Bay Area Advisory Board of Maitri, which is an organization that helps survivors of trafficking and domestic abuse.

In fact, she was a co-founder of the Maitri organization and the Board of Pratham a literacy program that provides small start-up seed money, and job training to women in India in addition to working with underprivileged children.
Chitra currently makes her home in Texas where she lives with Murthy her husband.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s “The Conch Bearer” opens with a poor boy named Anand having to spend his energy, time and his days pouring tea for his cruel and nasty boss. Once upon a time, he had a father that provided for the family but he had left for Dubai to make more money.
In the beginning, the money his father sent was enough to keep his mother, his sister, and him afloat. However, the money suddenly stopped coming and they hadn’t heard from his father for months on end.

He had been forced to become the head of the household and had to put up with low pay and horrible conditions at work. The only consolation is the smile he gets to put on his mother’s face at the end of the week.

However, he is always dreaming of a day when he and the family will be rid of poverty and finally be able to live with dignity. He often finds himself believing and wishing that magic would be the solution to all their problems.
Things turn interesting when he finds a conch shell that has mystical powers and has to go on a long quest that may, at last, help him banish poverty.

Chitra Divakaruni’s “The Mirror of Fire and Dreamings” starts right from where the first story ended.

Nisha and Anand were happy and safe in the Valley of silver where they learned all manner of magical techniques and attend the Hogwarts School of healers.

For the most part, it is Nisha who is contented with her lot in life while Anand is not so sure about his decision to live there or even if he deserves to be there.

His teachers believe in him but he thinks he is being left behind by the other students even though the fact is they have been studying for at least a year before he joined.

While listening to the wind lesson one day he saw a vision in which a healer asked for his help as the residents of his village seem to have lost their spirits when they went to work in the woods.
The Chief healer sends Abhaydatta to investigate and ignores Anand despite the fact that he was the one who saw the vision.

When he has another vision in which Abhaydatta gets in a lot of trouble. He convinces Nisha to take along their mystical conch and go look for their friend.

It makes for an excellent adventure with magic mirrors, genies, evil sorcerers, prime ministers, and a power struggle in the Moghul era.

Chitra Banerjee’s Shadowland sees Anand the hero of the series as a fifteen-year-old who is back in the more familiar surroundings of the Silver Vally high in the Himalayas.

He is still learning the many secrets of the Brotherhood when his beloved Conch goes missing. The conch was stolen by some unknown powers and this soon makes his home a barren wasteland without its source of mystical energy.

Working with Nisha his friend, he goes on what could perhaps be his most dangerous quest yet. He travels to the forbidding and cold world of Shadowland as he tries to get back the conch and restore his homeland to its original state.