Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s new book, Queen of Dreams is featured in Newsweek magazine:

Newsweek: What else influenced you [to write Queen of Dreams]?

CBD: The shock of 9/11 and its aftermath. If my novel is about how dreams affect our waking life, this was the other end. What happens in reality is sometimes unbelievable, like a nightmare. Many people felt, “Is this real? This can’t be happening.” When reality takes on that nightmare quality, that shade of the surreal, some people respond with fear and prejudice; they need to blame somebody, to lash out at someone who looks different, who is the “other.” Nationwide, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities became hate-crime victims. Businesses were vandalized, people beaten up—even murdered. Many were afraid to leave their homes. We were advised by mass e-mail, “Don’t wear Indian clothes,” “Don’t go out by yourself,” “Pretend you’re Hispanic,” “Put up an American flag, a GOD BLESS AMERICA sign.”

Of course this will probably be another depressing book by a South Asian author but at least it tackles some new themes.

CBD: …That [9/11] was a tragedy for [Americans of South Asian descent] also—we’d lost people. Then this additional burden—of proving ourselves patriotic—was placed on us because we were “suspicious looking.” It was an injustice to our community at a time when we all needed to come together as Americans. So, the second theme in “Queen of Dreams” is, what does it mean to be American? Does it mean one thing in good times, another in bad? When everything’s going well, Indians are a model minority—we’re exotic, you take our bindi, our henna, things you like. When things go bad, suddenly, we’re “terrorists”?