Chitra Divakaruni

Chitra Divakaruni is an award-winning writer, teacher and the author of 23 books such as Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, Palace of Illusions, The Forest of Enchantments, The Last Queen, and Independence. Her newest book is a biography, An Uncommon Love: The Early Life of Sudha and Narayana Murthy. She is the McDavid professor of Creative Writing in the internationally acclaimed Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston.

Her work has been translated into 30 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Bengali, Hungarian, Turkish, Hindi, and Japanese. They have been made into films, plays and dance dramas, and performed as operas.

Her awards include two American Book Awards, a PEN Josephine Miles award, a Premio Scanno award from Italy, a Light of India award, and a Times of India Best Author award. The Economic Times has included her in their list of 20 Most Influential Global Indian Women. 

She has been an activist in the fields of education and domestic violence for many years. She serves on the Advisory Boards of Daya (Houston) and Maitri (San Francisco Area), both organizations that help survivors of domestic violence. She also serves on the board of Akshaya Patra USA, a nonprofit providing meals to Indian schoolchildren. 

Chitra serves on the 2026 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction jury.