Divakaruni's first short-story collection, Arranged Marriage: Stories (1995), tells many stories about Indian women who are in traditional, arranged marriages. The stories take place in either India or the United States, but in both cases these women face many challenges as they attempt to reconcile their Eastern heritage with Western ideas.

Divakaruni was an established poet by the time she started writing short stories and novels. One of her volumes of poetry, Black Candle (1991), includes poems about the harsh treatment faced by many women in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

In Divakaruni's first novel, The Mistress of Spices (1997), Tilo is a young Indian woman who ends up on a remote island where she is taught the magical, curative properties of spices. She is sent to Oakland, California, as a spice mistress, destined to live alone while she heals others with her gift...