Anita Desai

Anita Desai (b. 1937) was born to a German mother and an Indian father. She spent much of her initial life in New Delhi and completed her initial education there.

Anita Desai’s works usually deal with the personal angst of women. Many of her characters are disturbed or neurotic, trying to grapple with the constraints and expectations forced on them by family and society, or failing in that effort. She has also written popular children’s books.

She teaches at MIT (USA). She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Guardian Prize for Children’s Fiction, among several other awards.

Works

• Voices in the City
• Bye-Bye, Blackbird
• Fire on the Mountain
• Games at Twilight
• Where Shall We Go This Summer?
• The Peacock Garden
• Clear Light of Day
• The Village by the Sea
• Cry, the Peacock
• In Custody
• Baumgartner’s Bombay
• Journey to Ithaca
• Fasting, Feasting
• Diamond Dust: Stories
• The Zigzag Way

Voices in the City

Based almost exclusively on the life of the middle class intellectuals of Calcutta, Voices in the City is the story of a Bohemian brother and his two sisters caught in the cross-currents of changing social values. In many ways the story reflects a vivid picture of India’s social transition—a phase in which the older elements are not altogether dead and the emergent ones not fully evolved.

The novel describes the corrosive effects of city life upon an Indian family. Brought up in luxury by an over-indulgent mother, Nirode settles down in Calcutta and becomes absorbed into its bohemian life, while his elder sister Monisha lives out a servile existence within the rigid confines of a traditional Hindu family. Their younger sister arrives from the country and becomes involved with an artist; but the outcome of this and the dreadful decision Monisha eventually takes, make this novel a doubly haunting and a consummate work of art.

Where Shall We Go This Summer?

Where Shall We Go This Summer? is a powerful novel that presents the predicament of a lonely married woman who aspires to triumph over the chaos and suffering of her rather unusual existence. The author explores the inner lives of her many characters and looks daringly beneath the superficial sophistication and self-deceptions, making in the process the discovery that the much talked about ideals of the politicians ultimately lead to hypocrisy and a dishonest life.