Author Divakaruni shares tales of foreign and native culture

Drawing on her experiences as a native of India, author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni melds all the confusion of love and cultural transition with artful narrative and precise detail in her collection of short stories, Arranged Marriage. Divakaruni is coming to Oberlin to read and discuss her work on Oct. 16 and 17.

Divakaruni's stories shed light on pieces of American culture that are easily taken for granted by those familiar with it. In "Clothes," she writes, "The store was called 7-Eleven. I thought it a strange name, exotic, risky... The store sold all kinds of amazing things - apple juice in cardboard cartons that never leaked; American bread that came in cellophane packages, already cut up; canisters of potato chips, each large grainy flake curved exactly like the next."

Stylistically, Divakaruni explores all sorts of interesting techniques and succeeds. In "The Word Love," she convincingly tells the narrative through the second person, while "The Bats" is related through the eyes of a child. Divakaruni's voice holds sincere for all characters and angles through which she attempts to look at the world.

As the title suggests, many of the stories revolve around arranged marriages, but the subtle twists in each story lend themselves to deeper trends. The stories question conventions in each culture and the conflict that mixing two cultures can create, while also noting that some traditions, such as abusive marriages, hold true independent of culture.

Most of the stories revolve around issues that women of any upbringing can relate to. Marriage is something that many of Divakaruni's characters evade by going to America to attend college. This is where she presents the most interesting study of cultural differences and similarities.

In "Silver Pavements," Jayanti has come to Chicago to study, and stays with her aunt, who has entered an arranged marriage to an auto mechanic. The husband will not let his wife out of the house, and when Jayanti finally convinces her to go on a short walk, the two women are ridiculed by boys who call them "niggers."

Jayanti reflects back on the balcony of her aunt's apartment, watching her first snow. "I notice that the snow has covered my own hands so they are no longer brown but white, white, white. And it makes sense that the beauty and the pain should be part of each other. I continue holding them out in front of me, gazing at them, until they're completely covered. Until they do not hurt at all."

Much of Divakaruni's descriptive metaphor may sound contrived until the reader realizes that the author comes from a different culture, with different values in language as well as custom. But Divakaruni's detailed observations effectively bring the reader into each story, helping the reader picture a society that, for many Americans, would be hard to imagine.

Storyteller: Chitra Divakaruni comes to Oberlin next week to read from and talk about her latest work, Arranged Marriage.