Introduction & Overview of Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter Introduction

Chitra Divakaruni's "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter" was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1998 and was included in Divakaruni's second shortstory collection, The Unknown Errors of Our Lives (2001). Divakaruni is an Indian who immigrated to the United States, and "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter" is one of her many stories that explores the culture shock faced by Indian women who have made such immigrations. In this particular case, Mrs. Dutta, an Indian widow, bows to her sense of duty and pressure from her Calcutta relatives. She decides to come and live with her son and his family in the San Francisco Bay area—a setting that Divakaruni uses repeatedly in her fiction. Throughout the story, Mrs. Dutta tries to answer her Calcutta friend's question about whether or not she is happy in America, but she keeps putting her response letter aside. She is afraid to explore how she...
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