Kiran Desai was born in India in 1971, and educated in India, England
and the United States. She is the daughter of
Anita Desai, and now
travels between the three countries,
and says she feels 'no alienation or dislocation'.
She spent four years writing her first novel, and says it is not at
all autobiographical. An excerpt was featured in the New Yorker India
Fiction issue, and in Mirrorwork, Salman Rushdie's controversial
anthology of 50 years of Indian writing.
She is currently a student in Columbia University's creative writing course.
In a generous vision, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, Desai presents the human quandaries facing a panoply of characters. This majestic novel of a busy, grasping time -- every moment holding out the possibility of hope or betrayal -- illuminates the consequences of colonialism and global conflicts of religion, race, and nationality.
