Special thanks to @amaranthinepoetry for recommending Anita Desai to discuss!
❝Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.❞
-- Anita Desai
English-language Indian novelist, short story writer, and children's books author, Anita Desai was born on June 24, 1937 in Mussoorie, India. Her original name was Anita Mazumdar. Her mother was German and her father was Bengali, Desai learned to speak German, Hindi, and English. Her stories focus on characters and mood using visual images. She received a B.A. in English from the University of Delhi in 1957.
One of her main topics focused on the suppression and oppression of Indian women, especially in her first novel, Cry, The Peacock (1963) and later on her award-winning novel, Where Shall We Go This Summer? (1975). Each narrative encapsulates the concern with female sensibility and the psychological characteristics. Desai has written seventeen books including short stories; the latest being titled, The Artist Disappearance (2011) collected three novellas which examined collateral abandonment and dislocation wrought by India's rush toward modernity.
She has won multiple awards ranging from a Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award. Her novel In Custody (1984) got a movie adaption, which was released in 1994. She lives in the United States, where she is the John E. Burchard Professor of Writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Discussion Questions:
Which novel's characters did you relate to?
Each novel has a new form: poetic frames, long setting descriptions, dialogue, internal monologues, which one as a reader do you enjoy reading? Which one do you enjoy writing or experimenting with?
The narrative's voice draws in the reader, which one drew your (as the reader) quickly?
Always open to additional questions and comments on about Anita Desai and her works.
If there is another author you would like to see a discussion on, please post your suggestion in the comments below for a chance to be featured in a future chapter!
Resources:
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