CHICAGO (March 7, 2008) - The headline event of Columbia’s popular Story Week Festival of Writers will feature a talk with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Divakaruni, whose popular works include Queen of Dreams and Sister of My Heart will read from and discuss her recently published novel The Palace of Illusions with Booklist Associate Editor and Open Books WLUW-FM host Donna Seaman. A book signing follows.
The free event will take place at 6:00 p.m. in the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium of the Harold Washington Public Library on Monday, March 17. The reading and conversation is being presented in collaboration with Columbia’s Conversations in the Arts: Up Close With… series. More information and a full schedule of events at www.colum.edu/storyweek.
In The Palace of Illusions, Divakaruni reweaves the epic Indian saga the Mahabharat from the point of view of the female heroine, Pricess Panchaali. Though set sometime between 6000 BCE and 5000 BCE, the story has many parallels to today’s war-torn world. Central to the novel’s plot is the infamous and bloody battle of Kurukshetra, in which most kings of the period participated and perished. Divakaruni closely examines both the political and personal motivations for the war, and is unsparing in recording its consequences for her characters. The Mahabharat was meant to impart wisdom just as much as it was meant to entertain, and Divakaruni fulfills those purposes admirably, and takes a decidedly feminist look at the tale, in the pages of her much-anticipated new novel.
Joyce Carol Oates canceled her book tour due to the death of her husband of more than 40 years.
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