Kiran Desai
Kiran Desai (b. 1971) was born in India and educated in India, England, and USA.
Kiran Desai has written two novels so far. Though her debut was greeted with interest, and even found a mention in Salman Rushdie’s anthology on Indian Writing, it will perhaps take her a few more novels to emerge as a writer in her own right, for it is inevitable that comparisons will be drawn to her mother Anita Desai, one of India’s most well-known novelists.
Update: Kiran Desai emerged out of her mother's shadow with a bang with her second novel The Inheritance of Loss which won the prestigious Booker prize for 2006. This prize has eluded Anita Desai even after being shortlisted several times.
She is currently studying at Columbia University. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker.
Works
- Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
- The Inheritance of Loss
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard is the comic story of Sampath Chawla, whose birth is greeted by fellow-villagers as auspicious because it co-incidentally marks the ending of a drought. The villagers assure Sampath’s parents that their son is destined to achieve greatness.
As Sampath grows up, working as a petty government official, his life is singularly unmarked by greatness. He is inspired only when in search of a tranquil place for his siesta. Only his grandmother continues to take the prophecy of his greatness seriously, believing that Sampath has merely taken a longer route to achieve his destination.
One day, Sampath climbs up a guava tree and becomes unintentionally famous as a holy man, setting off a series of events that spin increasingly out of control, and thus fulfils the prophecy.