The Palace of Illusions MOBI Ò The Palace Kindle -

The Palace of Illusions MOBI Ò The Palace Kindle - Her newest novel is Before We Visit the Goddess about 3 generations of women grandmother mother and daughter who each examine the uestion what does it mean to be a successful woman Simon SchusterShe was born in India and lived there until 1976 at which point she left Calcutta and came to the United States She continued her education in the field of English by receiving a Master’s degree from Wright State University in Dayton Ohio and a PhD from the University of California BerkeleyTo earn money for her education she held many odd jobs including babysitting selling merchandise in an Indian boutiue slicing bread in a bakery and washing instruments in a science lab At Berkeley she lived in the International House and worked in the dining hall She briefly lived in Illinois and Ohio but has spent much of her life in Northern California which she often writes about She now lives in Texas which has found its way into her upcoming book Before We Visit the GoddessChitra currently teaches in the nationally ranked Creative Writing program at the Univ of Houston She serves on the Advisory board of Maitri in the San Francisco Bay Area and Daya in Houston Both these are organizations that help South Asian or South Asian American women who find themselves in abusive or domestic violence situations She is also closely involved with Pratham an organization that helps educate children especially those living in urban slums in IndiaShe has judged several prestigious awards such as the National Book Award and the PEN Faulkner AwardTwo of her books The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart have been made into movies by filmmakers Gurinder Chadha and Paul Berges an English film and Suhasini Mani Ratnam a Tamil TV serial respectively Her novels One Amazing Thing and Palace of Illusions have currently been optioned for movies Her book Arranged Marriage has been made into a play and performed in the US and upcoming May in Canada River of Light an opera about an Indian woman in a bi cultural marriage for which she wrote the libretto has been performed in Texas and California She lives in Houston with her husband Murthy She has two sons Anand and Abhay whose names she has used in her children’s novelsChitra loves to connect with readers on her Facebook author page