PREMIUM FEATURE
Advanced Search Filters
Filter search results by source, date, and more with our premium search tools.
Food is an important symbol. It’s particularly important for immigrants as the one thing they hope to be able to carry forward that’s relatively easy… - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
" "Food is an important symbol. It’s particularly important for immigrants as the one thing they hope to be able to carry forward that’s relatively easy to recreate, although it was much harder in the early days when there weren’t many Indian groceries. Immigrants learned to make substitutions, like using Bisquick for gulab jamuns, tricks like that. I’m interested in food in my personal life, too. But food exists on many levels in my books. It reflects changes in our culture as we take shortcuts in how we cook our food, how it remains a comfort regardless.
English
Collect this quote
About Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (July 29, 1956) is an Indian-American author, poet, and the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Chitralekha Banerjee
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
It has definitely influenced my writing. I put appropriate Bengali words in among the English ones because I want that weaving of languages. Concepts from Bengali are sometimes difficult to translate but I want them to have a role. It’s complicated. How do you bring them in without putting little explanatory notes? How do you write so you are at once inviting everyone into your book but also creating a special texture that people of your language background would especially appreciate?
…some characters would be more androgynous by nature and maybe by nurture. But as I’ve continued to write, I’ve made it a point, for my own growth, to write from the point of view of both men and women. I’m also interested in how some women can be unsympathetic to women’s issues, especially as they grow older and attain positions of power over other women. That relationship between women, and the power struggle that ensues, is interesting. I want to explore the fact that things are not as simple as saying, okay, men are the bad guys, they’re the only villains…
When I wrote Arranged Marriage, many of the women in that book were isolated...That isn’t so for women coming here now. They have access to generations of wisdom, from recipes to how to bring up children to husband problems. There are also fewer chances of abuse, because domestic abuse flourishes in isolation. We are seeing less abuse, at least in the newer generation. There is more accountability.
Loading...