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Information About

Anita Desai





BACKGROUND

Desai was born Anita Mazumdar to a German mother and a Bengali father in Mussoorie , India . She was educated in Delhi at Queen Mary's Higher Secondary School and Miranda House , University Of Delhi . She is married, has four children and her daughter, Kiran Desai , is a novelist in her own right.


ACADEMIA

Desai has taught at Mount Holyoke College and Smith College and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Girton College, Cambridge and Clare Hall, Cambridge.


FILM

The 1993 Merchant Ivory Productions film '' In Custody '' (based upon her 1984 novel of the same name) was directed by Ismail Merchant , with a screenplay by Shahrukh Husain . It won the 1994 President of India Gold Medal for Best Picture and stars the noted actors Shashi Kapoor , Shabana Azmi and Om Puri .


SELECT WORKS

  • ''The Zig Zag Way'' (2004)

  • ''Diamond Dust and Other Stories'' (2000)

  • ''Fasting, Feasting'' (1999)

  • ''Journey to Ithaca'' (1995)

  • ''Baumgartner's Bombay'' (1988)

  • ''In Custody'' (1984), Got shortlisted for the ''Booker Prize''

  • ''The Village By The Sea'' (1982), the ''Guardian Award for Children's Fiction''

  • ''Clear Light of Day'' (1980), Got shortlisted for the ''Booker Prize''

  • ''Games at Twilight'' (1978)

  • ''Fire on the Mountain'' (1977)



SEE ALSO



REFERENCES

  • Abrams, M.H and Stephen Greenblatt. "Anita Desai." ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature,'' Vol. 2C., 7th Edition. New York: W.W. Norton , 2000: 2768 - 2785.


  • Alter, Stephen and Wimal Dissanayake. "A Devoted Son by Anita Desai." ''The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories.'' New Delhi, Middlesex, New York: Penguin Books, 1991: 92-101.


  • ''India’s 50 Most Illustrious Women'' (ISBN 8188086193) by Indra Gupta


  • Selvadurai, Shyam (ed.). "Anita Desai:Winterscape." ''Story-Wallah: A Celebration of South Asian Fiction.'' New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005:69-90.



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