The Mistress Of Spices
  • Published: 1 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9781409010630
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

The Mistress Of Spices

Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Feb 2011
Paperback
1 Apr 1998
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Shortlisted for the Womens Prize, an exotic, magical novel of love and the sensuous power of spices.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
'A dazzling tale... woven with poetry and storyteller magic.' AMY TAN

Tilo, an immigrant from India, runs a spice shop in Oakland, California. While she supplies the ingredients for curries and kormas, she also dispenses wisdom and the appropriate spice: for Tilo is a Mistress of Spices, a priestess of the secret magical powers of spices.

To those who visit her shop, Tilo prescribes coriander for the restoration of sight, chilli for the cleansing of evil, fenugreek for the pain of rejection. But when a lonely American ventures into the store, a troubled Tilo cannot find the correct spice, for he arouses in her a forbidden desire - which if she follows will destroy her magical powers.

Compelling and lyrical, full of heady scents and with more than a touch of humour, this novel explores the clash between East and West even as it unveils the universal mysteries of the human heart.

'I felt excited and empowered by the way she used words' NAOMI ALDERMAN, author of THE POWER

'Unusual, clever, and often exquisite' LA Times
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  • Published: 1 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9781409010630
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
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About the author

Chitra Divakaruni

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the author of the Women's Prize-shortlisted The Mistress of Spices and other award-winning, bestselling books including Sister of My Heart and Arranged Marriage. Her books have been translated into 29 languages, and several of her works have been made into films and plays. Born in India, she lives in Houston with her husband and two sons.

Also by Chitra Divakaruni

Arranged Marriage
Sister Of My Heart
See all

Praise for The Mistress Of Spices

A dazzling tale of misbegotten dreams and desires, hopes and expectations, woven with poetry and storyteller magic.

Amy Tan

An unusual, clever, and often exquisite first novel...The result is rather as if Isabel Allende met Laura Esquivel.

Los Angeles Times

A splendid novel, beautifully conceived and crafted.

Pat Conroy

Mythical and mystical, Mistress of Spices is reminiscent of fables and fairy tales. . . . The story Divakaruni tells is transporting, but it is her gift for metaphor that makes this novel live and breathe, its pages as redolent as any freshly ground spice.

Booklist

I read Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel The Mistress of Spices and felt excited and empowered by the way she used words

Naomi Alderman, Guardian

For ARRANGED MARRIAGE, 'As irresistible as the impulse which leads her characters to surface to maturity, raising their heads above the floods of silver ignorance'

New York Times Book Review