‘I have spent at least a part of my day writing since the age of seven’: Anita Desai

If someone were to ask me to list my five all-time favourite writers, Anita Desai would make the list on any given day. I was introduced to her work in my “Indian Writing in English” course in the BA English programme at Jadavpur University, and since then I have read all of her books except the earliest works, which are either hard to find or out of print.

Reading Desai’s fiction many years after they were published is a strange feeling. They are often reminiscent of a time and India that no longer exist. For instance, in Baumgartner’s Bombay, we meet a Jewish refugee who has fled Nazi Germany; in The Clear Light of Day, the gramophone music that the Das children listen to reverberates long after you’ve read the last page; in In Custody, the fading fame of an Urdu poet makes you aware of our precariously-perched cultural heritage in the age of breakneck modernity.

Still, Desai’s fiction remains so widely read (and studied) and loved is because it transcends time to tell humane stories of nostalgia, longing, regret, and hope. Her clear-eyed prose is a lasting example of what beautiful writing should be.

Born in 1937 in Mussoorie to a German mother and Bengali father, Desai has been shortlisted...

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