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Meet novelist, short-story writer and children’s author Anita Desai in person! Don’t miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to speak to one of the world’s most eminent writers!

Details as follows:

Monday, 25 August 2008
7.00 pm
The Pod, Level 16, National Library
Admission is Free.  All are Welcome.

More about Anita Desai:

Now a Professor of Humanities at MIT, Anita Desai was born in India in 1937 to an Indian father and a German mother. She was three-times nominated for the Booker Prize, but ironically, in a twist of fate, her daughter, Kiran Desai, won the prize in 2006 for her book The Inheritance of Loss. In 1993 Merchant Ivory released a film based on one of her books, In Custody. In 1990, she was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s highest artistic honour.

Cry, the Peacock
Call No.: DES
Anita’s first novel in 1963 sets out
the major themes that would
occupy her writing – the tensions
between modernity and tradition,
especially on Anglicized middle-class
Indian women.

The Village by the Sea
Call No.: Y DES
A novel especially written for
young people, this deals with two
teenagers, siblings, who have to
shoulder familial responsibilities
when their parents are unable to
do so.

Clear Light of Day
Call No.: DES
She considers this her most
autobiographical work, and it
earned her first Booker
nomination. It tells the tale of a
family set in Old Delhi.

Fasting, Feasting
Call No.: DES
This 1999 title earned Desai her
third Booker nomination. It tells the
tale of an Indian daughter who
aspires to independence outside of
her family and marriage.

~ Contributed by Nur Hakim Low, Associate Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services.

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