Chitrita Banerji is an Indian English

Indian English

Indian English is an umbrella term used to describe dialects of the English language spoken primarily in the Republic of India.As a result of British colonial rule until Indian independence in 1947 English is an official language of India and is widely used in both spoken and literary contexts...

 author and translator, particularly noted for her work on Bengali

Bengali cuisine

Bengali cuisine is a culinary style originating in Bengal, a region in the eastern South Asia which is now divided between the Indian state of West Bengal and the independent country of Bangladesh. Other regions, such as Tripura, and Barak Valley region of Assam also have large native Bengali...

 food. She was the recipient of the Stephen Coe award for writings on Food history (1998/1999).

Life

She grew up in Kolkata

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

 at the age of 20, she went to Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 where she did her Masters in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

. There she met and married a Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

i Muslim, and changed her name to Banerji-Abdullah. After living in Bangladesh for seven years, the marriage ended in divorce. She now lives in Boston with her doctor husband.

Literary career

In the 80s, she translated several Bengali

Bengali language

Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

 novels, including Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...

's Adventures of Feluda

Feluda

Feluda, or Prodosh Chandra Mitra, who uses the anglicised name Pradosh C. Mitter, is a fictional private investigator starring in a series of Bengali novels and short stories written by the famous Indian Bengali film director and writer Satyajit Ray. The detective lives at Rajani Sen Road,...

 and Sunil Gangopadhyay

Sunil Gangopadhyay

Sunil Gangopadhyay , is a celebrated Indian poet and novelist.-Early life:...

's Arjun.

Her Bengali Cooking: Seasons and Festivals (1997), was a pioneering book on the food and culture of Bengal. Subsequently, she has authored several more books on related themes, including the Hour of the Goddess: Memories of Women, Food, and Ritual in Bengal (2007), and Eating India (2008).