Kiran Desai
Encyclopedia
Kiran Desai is an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 who is a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Her novel The Inheritance of Loss
The Inheritance of Loss
The Inheritance of Loss is the second novel by Indian author Kiran Desai. It was first published in 2006. It won a number of awards, including the Man Booker Prize for that year, the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007, and the 2006 Vodafone Crossword Book Award.It was written over a...

won the 2006
2006 in literature
The year 2006 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Literature:*Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun*Chris Adrian - The Children's Hospital *Martin Amis - House of Meetings...

 Man Booker Prize
Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...

  and the National Book Critics Circle
National Book Critics Circle
The National Book Critics Circle is an American tax-exempt organization for active book reviewers. Its flagship is the National Book Critics Circle Award....

 Fiction Award. She is the daughter of the noted author Anita Desai
Anita Desai
Anita Mazumdar Desai is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

 and the partner of Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk , generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....

.

Biography

Kiran Desai was born in New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, and lived there until she was 10. She left India at 14, and she and her mother then lived in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 for a year, and then moved to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, where she studied creative writing at Bennington College
Bennington College
Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...

, Hollins University
Hollins University
Hollins University is a four-year institution of higher education, a private university located on a campus on the border of Roanoke County, Virginia and Botetourt County, Virginia...

, and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

In January 2010, the Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

 Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk , generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....

 acknowledged that he was in a relationship with Desai.

Work

Her first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard is a novel by Kiran Desai published in 1998. It is her first book and won the top prize for the Betty Trask Awards in 1998. It is set in the Indian village of Shahkot and follows the exploits of a young man, Sampath Chawala, trying to avoid the responsibilities of...

, was published in 1998 and received accolade
Praise
Praise is the act of making positive statements about a person, object or idea, either in public or privately. Praise is typically, but not exclusively, earned relative to achievement and accomplishment...

s from such notable figures as Salman Rushdie. It went on to win the Betty Trask Award
Betty Trask Award
The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. The awards were established in 1984 by the Society of Authors, at the bequest of the late Betty Trask, a reclusive author of over thirty romance novels...

, a prize given by the Society of Authors
Society of Authors
The Society of Authors is a trade union for professional writers that was founded in 1884 to protect the rights of writers and fight to retain those rights .It has counted amongst its members and presidents numerous notable writers and poets including Tennyson The Society of Authors (UK) is a...

 for the best new novels by citizens
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...

 of the Commonwealth of Nations
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

 under the age of 35.

Her second book, The Inheritance of Loss
The Inheritance of Loss
The Inheritance of Loss is the second novel by Indian author Kiran Desai. It was first published in 2006. It won a number of awards, including the Man Booker Prize for that year, the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007, and the 2006 Vodafone Crossword Book Award.It was written over a...

,
(2006) has been widely praised by critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

s throughout Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and won the 2006 Man Booker Prize
Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...

 as well as the 2006 National Book Critics Circle
National Book Critics Circle
The National Book Critics Circle is an American tax-exempt organization for active book reviewers. Its flagship is the National Book Critics Circle Award....

 Fiction Award.

In September 2007 she was a guest on Private Passions
Private Passions
Private Passions is a weekly music discussion programme which has been running for over 10 years on BBC Radio 3, presented by the composer Michael Berkeley...

, the biographical music discussion programme hosted by Michael Berkeley
Michael Berkeley
Michael Berkeley is a British composer and broadcaster on music.-Early life:His father was the composer Sir Lennox Berkeley...

 on BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

. In May 2007 she was the featured author at the inaugural Asia House Festival of Asian Literature
Asia House Festival of Asian Literature
The Asia House Festival of Asian Literature, is the first and only Literary festival in the UK dedicated to writing about Asia.The Festival focuses on the newest and best books about Asia or Asians in an annual series of talks and discussions...

.

Kiran Desai's Jemubhai Patel in Inheritance of Loss and her mother, Anita Desai's Nanda Kaul in Fire on the mountain have some similarities. Both of them want to lead a secluded life. They don't want to be disturbed by others. Their grandchild is the first one who disturbs their aloneness. At first, they feel the presence of their grandchild embarrassing. But, they gradually understand that there are certain similarities between them and their grandchildren. In the portrayal of Jemubhai Patel, Kiran Desai must have been inspired by the character, Nanda Kaul of her mother.

External links

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