Anita Desai facts for kids

Anita Desai is a famous Indian writer and a professor. She was born as Anita Mazumdar on June 24, 1937. She has been nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize three times.

Anita Desai won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain. This award is given by India's National Academy of Literature. She also won the Guardian Prize in 1983 for her book The Village by the Sea. Some of her other well-known books include Cry, the Peacock, Voices in the City, Fire on the Mountain, and a collection of short stories called Games at Twilight. She is also a member of the Royal Society of Literature in London.

Early Life and Education

Anita Desai was born in 1937 in Mussoorie, India. Her mother, Toni Nime, was from Germany, and her father, D. N. Mazumdar, was a businessman from Bengal. Her parents met and married in Berlin before World War II. At that time, it was not common for an Indian man to marry a European woman.

Soon after they married, her family moved to New Delhi. Anita grew up there with her two older sisters and brother. She learned to speak Hindi from her neighbors and German at home. She also spoke Bengali, Urdu, and English.

Anita started reading and writing in English at school when she was seven years old. Because of this, English became the language she used for her writing. She published her very first story when she was just nine years old!

She went to Queen Mary's Higher Secondary School in Delhi. In 1957, she earned her degree in English literature from Miranda House at the University of Delhi. The next year, she married Ashvin Desai. He later became the director of a computer software company.

Anita and Ashvin Desai had four children. One of their children, Kiran Desai, also became a famous novelist and won the Booker Prize. Anita Desai's novel The Village by the Sea is set in a place near Alibagh where she used to take her children for weekend trips.

Writing Career

Anita Desai published her first novel, Cry, the Peacock, in 1963. In 1958, she helped start a publishing company called Writers Workshop with P. Lal.

She considers her book Clear Light of Day (published in 1980) to be her most personal work. This is because the story takes place during her teenage years and in the same neighborhood where she grew up.

In 1984, she published In Custody. This book is about an Urdu poet who is getting older. It was nominated for the Booker Prize. In 1993, she started teaching creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Her novel Fasting, Feasting, which was a finalist for the Booker Prize in 1999, made her even more popular. Her book The Zigzag Way, set in Mexico, came out in 2004. Her most recent collection of short stories, The Artist of Disappearance, was published in 2011.

Teaching and Recognition

Besides teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Anita Desai has also taught at other colleges. These include Mount Holyoke College, Baruch College, and Smith College.

She is a member of several important groups, such as the Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is also an honorary member of Girton College, Cambridge, which she dedicated her book Baumgartner's Bombay to.

Film Adaptation

In 1993, her novel In Custody was made into a movie. The film was produced by Merchant Ivory Productions and directed by Ismail Merchant. It won the 1994 President of India Gold Medal for Best Picture. Famous actors like Shashi Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, and Om Puri starred in the movie.

Awards and Honors

Anita Desai has received many awards for her writing:

• 1978 – Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for Fire on the Mountain
• 1978 – Sahitya Akademi Award for Fire on the Mountain
• 1980 – Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Clear Light of Day
• 1983 – Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for The Village by the Sea: an Indian family story
• 1984 – Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for In Custody
• 1993 – Neil Gunn Prize
• 1999 – Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fasting, Feasting
• 2000 – Alberto Moravia Prize for Literature (Italy)
• 2003 – Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature
• 2007 – Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
• 2014 – Padma Bhushan (a high civilian award in India)
• 2020 – Companion of Literature

See also

In Spanish: Anita Desai para niños

• Indian English literature
• List of Indian writers