num_pages: 317
description: Magical spices that could cure and release you from all your woes, worries, pains and innermost desires, and a mistress who does the magic- The Mistress of Spices is a story about an arthritic and old, but immortal woman born in some other time who travels through time and sells her magical spices to strangers. Written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, the book explores the different Indian spices and lives of immigrants in the United States. The book has been listed on the Los Angeles Best Books of 1997 and also adapted into a Hollywood motion picture with the same name. Tilo opens a shop in Oakland, California, and sells exotic spices for Indian curries. Her spices not only taste good but also able help people fulfill their desires. She has a mysterious magical power that can only pass through her spices. Through the spices, she dispels her customers' problems and cures their troubles and ailments. The book brings out different characters that represent not only Indians but also different types of people in general. It includes an abused and tortured wife, a taxi driver who has come to the US to live his dreams, a group of talkative and outrageous girls who cannot stand the views of their traditional and narrow-minded parents, and a victim of racism in school. All these characters come to Tilo, and she gives them her magical, miraculous spices banishing all their agonies. She has got solutions for every other problem. You name it and she is ready with the composition of spices, whether it is turmeric to erase wrinkles or cinnamon to make friends, fenugreek for making a wife desirable to her husband or chillies to get rid of evil. She is famous and her magic works wonders. But one day, a handsome American man visits her shop and stirs her forbidden desires for which she does not have a cure in her spices. The growing unsettled desires are slowly destroying her magical abilities. Will she be able to find a cure for it or will she give in to her feelings? 
language: English
title: The Mistress of Spices
titlecomplete: The Mistress of Spices
genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, Indian Literature, Asia, India, Romance, Novels, Contemporary, Fantasy, Food
ratings_count: 13995
places: Oakland, California
awards: awardedAt: 852105600000
name: Orange Prize
category: Fiction Longlist, awardedAt: 883641600000
name: IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award
publisher: Anchor