Before We Visit the Goddess - Hardcover

"I will never forget Sabitri, Bela, and Tara: grandmother, mother, and daughter after my own heart. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni cycles through generations of time, until we come to know our ancestresses--and the goddess. A lovely book."
--Maxine Hong Kingston, author of I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

"Tender, bittersweet, beautifully wrought tales about love and longing, exile and loneliness. I was reminded of the songs of separation sung by Bhojpuri women: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni discovers new nuances in the 'biraha' that creeps into the lives of migrants."--Amitav Ghosh, author of The Glass Palace

"Affecting."--The New York Times

"Emotionally accessible...[Divakaruni] balances the ache of separation with the thrills of independence and self-discovery...her characteristic passion, nerve and insight into the troubled soul are here in full."--The Wall Street Journal

"Divakaruni proves herself adept with all the tools in the writer's toolbox...Divakaruni makes use of two major writerly tools that seldom go together -- tragic drama, and screwball comedy. What's more, she finds entirely fresh ways to mete out the tropes of the South Asian immigrant story...hilarity deepens and clarifies the story's dark tones...an heirloom tapestry."--The Miami Herald

"Before We Visit the Goddess is full of different voices, going back and forth in time, with beautifully written chapters that could stand on their own as short stories but add layer upon layer of complication, wonder, humanity and empathy when joined together...Divakaruni builds her female characters as multidimensional -- highly complex, intelligent and nobody's doormat... Divakaruni guides us along their journeys with beautiful writing, surprising laughter and a truly memorable ending...I can't recommend this book enough. When it comes to fiction, Divakaruni is a new goddess on the Texas landscape."--The Austin American Statesman

"Divakaruni elegantly leads the reader through the twists and turns of life given the complications of culture, family expectations, and words left unsaid...the writing was crisp and clear. The characters were realistic and the dialogue believable. The story explores the dynamics of mothers and daughters caught in the cross-hairs of cultural and generation differences, as well as the complications of expectations, believed or real...Before We Visit the Goddess will leave the reader wondering about the relationship they have with their parents and what should be said before it is too late."--The Portland Book Review

"A novel about female strength and ambition and how one mother's decision can affect the lives of her family for generations to come."--Bustle

"Takes readers on an exotic, visceral journey beginning in the mango and saffron-scented kitchens of 1950s India and ending in present day Houston, Texas."--The Santa Cruz Sentinel

"Three generations of headstrong Bengali women, their passions, secrets, regrets and mysteries, come to life through Divakaruni's storytelling wizardry... Divakaruni brings us from the poor villages to the upper crust urban families, from India to Texas, to show how three courageous women struggle toward independence." --BBC.com

A beautiful, powerful new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of Sister of My Heart and The Mistress of Spices about three generations of mothers and daughters who must discover their greatest source of strength in one another—a masterful, brilliant tale of a family both united and torn apart by ambition and love.

The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but her family’s situation means college is an impossible dream. Then an influential woman from Kolkata takes Sabitri under her wing, but her generosity soon proves dangerous after the girl makes a single, unforgiveable misstep. Years later, Sabitri’s own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother’s choices, flees abroad with her political refugee lover—but the America she finds is vastly different from the country she’d imagined. As the marriage crumbles and Bela is forced to forge her own path, she unwittingly imprints her own child, Tara, with indelible lessons about freedom, heartbreak, and loyalty that will take a lifetime to unravel.

In her latest novel, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores the complex relationships between mothers and daughters, and the different kinds of love that bind us across generations. Before We Visit the Goddess captures the gorgeous complexity of these multi-generational and transcontinental bonds, sweeping across the twentieth century from the countryside of Bengal, India, to the streets of Houston, Texas—an extraordinary journey told through a sparkling symphony of voices.