One of the most accomplished fiction writers of English today, Anita Desai has established herself through the consistency of her formidable body of work. From acclaimed children's fiction--The Villag...
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In the following essay, Jena surveys Desai's early novels, highlighting the mental development of the female characters in terms of the patriarchal Indian family structure.
One of the chief del...
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In the following review, Chew assesses the familial subject matter of Fasting, Feasting, implicating the text in the perpetuation of patriarchal society.
In an article in the TLS of September 14, 1990...
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In the following review, Aldama outlines the plot of Fasting, Feasting, suggesting that the change of settings for the novel' s conclusion compromises the integrity of the narrative.
Anita Desa...
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In the following review, Curtis compares the themes and characters of Diamond Dust to other works by Desai.
With her customary quiet confidence, Anita Desai establishes her territory in the opening pa...
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In the following review, Narayan prefers the stories set abroad in Diamond Dust to those set in India, objecting to the latter's discomfiting perspective on contemporary Indian society and inap...
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In the following review, Gerster praises the themes, style, and settings of Diamond Dust.
English-language writers from Commonwealth countries tend to be lumbered with the role of “representati...
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In the following essay, Lacom examines the social contexts and ideologies of disabled characters in Clear Light of Day and Fatima Gallaire-Bourega's You Have Come Back, demonstrating the relati...
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In the following essay, Parikh compares the treatment of female relationships in Toni Morrison's fiction with that in Desai's novels, emphasizing the alienation experienced by the charac...
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In the following essay, Brush examines Desai's articulation of the largely neglected European emigrant to India in Baumgartner's Bombay, emphasizing the multiple marginalization of the p...
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In the following essay, Salgado analyzes the ways the individual stories of Games at Twilight question not only the concept of epiphany but also the potential for spiritual awareness in general, sugge...
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In the following essay, Mohan explores the effects of English literary studies on the subjectivities of the postcolonial urban Indian middle class in Desai's works, suggesting that the unspoken...
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In the following review, Parameswaran praises the complexity of the human relationships in Journey to Ithaca but finds their resolutions “too simplistic.”
Over a span of two decades and ...
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In the following essay, Smith contrasts the experiences of the imprisoned protagonist of Baumgartner's Bombay with the similar autobiographical account of Heinrich Harrar in Seven Years in Tibe...
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In the following essay, da Silva focuses on the use of an Indian setting in Baumgartner's Bombay to represent the protagonist's existential crisis, contending that colonial appropriation...
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In the following review, Annan discusses Fasting, Feasting within the context of contemporary Anglo-Indian literature, focusing on its characterization and themes.
When Tim Parks reviewed Salman Rushd...
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Critical Essay by The Times Literary Supplement
[Voices in the City] is set in Calcutta, in an atmosphere of aimless corruption and destruction. [Mrs. Desai] traces the development of a sensitive and ...
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Critical Essay by Gabriele Annan
It is fashionable to say that the Indian novel is taking the place of the Russian. Fire on the Mountain bears a resemblance to Turgenev's First Love. Both are p...
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Critical Essay by Katha Pollitt
"Fire on the Mountain" is a slight tale very much in the style of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala…. Set in Kasauli, a Himalyan resort of some former grandeur ...
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Critical Essay by Victoria Glendinning
"Games at Twilight", the title-story [in Anita Desai's collection of short stories,] is a jewel. It recounts something that has happened in ...
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Critical Essay by Ben Okri
Silence is clarity and white heat in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day, a novel about a family reunion, its unease, the disturbing remembrances that accompany it. Tara...
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Critical Essay by Anne Tyler
[Anita Desai's] work is known for its texture and for its ability to place us solidly within any scene, however foreign. She constructs her plots with infinite care...
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Critical Essay by Katherine Paterson
Clear Light of Day is about the journey backward and inward of two sisters, their exploration of what it means to be part of a family, to draw "from the sam...
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Critical Essay by John Leonard
"Clear Light of Day" is a wonderful novel about silence and music, about the partition of a family as well as a nation, about memories that are as mutilate...
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In the review of Clear Light of Day below, Annan discusses characterization and plot, concluding that the ending of the book is too explicit.
"The sense of dullness and hopelessness that reigne...
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In the review below, Chew discusses the themes in Baumgartner's Bombay.
Now that Baumgartner's Bombay has appeared, it seems it was inevitable that Anita Desai should have sought, at som...
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West is a British novelist and critic. Below, he praises Baumgartner's Bombay, calling Desai a "superb observer of the human race."
This [Baumgartner's Bombay] is a daring,...
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In the following excerpt, Dinnage comments on the "relentlessly dark" tone of Baumgartner's Bombay, calling it "the most pessimistic, but perhaps the most powerful" ...
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Desai on Her Parents and Upbringing:
My mother met my father when he was a student in Germany. She married him there, and went to India in the late 1920's. She used to tell us stories about Ge...
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In the following essay, Chellappan examines existential themes of "being and becoming" in Where Shall We Go This Summer?, contrasting the work to The Ramayana and Virginia Woolf's...
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In the essay below, Cronin examines Desai's treatment of India and Indian life and culture in such works as The Village by the Sea, Fire on the Mountain, and Clear Light of Day.
'Quiet w...
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In the essay below, Newman examines "the relation between discourse and history" in Baumgartner's Bombay.
Anita Desai has always sidestepped any recognition of language as a socia...
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Below, Phillips examines elements of Greek tragedy in Fire on the Mountain.
The Indian author Anita Desai creates in Fire on the Mountain (1977) a perfect tragedy in the Greek mode. Though fiction, Fi...
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In the following mixed review of Journey to Ithaca, Annan faults the narrative for being full of "gaps and improbabilities," but praises Desai's sincerity and even-handedness.
Jou...
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In the mixed review of Clear Light of Day below, Marsh discusses the themes of identity and autonomy.
"Only connect" was E. M. Forster's most famous piece of advice, and his most ...
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Below, Moore offers a mixed review of Journey to Ithaca, stating that the novel "may not be Anita Desai's best book; but I suspect it will prove her most memorable."
Despite its t...
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In the generally positive review below, Bernstein comments on plot, themes, and characterization in Journey to Ithaca.
The search for meaning, or, as one of the spiritual insurgents in Anita Desai�...
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In the essay below, Asnani examines the themes of "alienation and incommunication" in Where Shall We Go This Summer?, stating that Desai's "fiction grapples with the intang...
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In the generally positive review below, Daniels discusses the themes, characterization, and narrative structures in Clear Light of Day.
Clear Light of Day is an English novel (as distinct from America...
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In the positive review of Clear Light of Day below, Singh discusses Indian elements in the novel as well as the themes of memory and familial relationships.
A friend said the other day that Anita Desa...
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In the following negative review of Desai's prose fiction, which was published in response to Singh's review above, Kumar concentrates on the short story collection Games at Twilight, st...
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In the essay below, Rao focuses on the short story collection Games at Twilight to examine Desai's "obsessive concern with the 'existential' problems of her characters and ...
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In the following overview of Desai's works, Jain focuses on what he considers her "primary preoccupation": "The absurdity of human life, with the existential search for mea...
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Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss," a narrative of global discovery and displacement that has already won the Man Booker Prize, received another literary honor Thursday night: the National Boo...
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Anita Desai
Critical Essay by Seema Jena
Desai's 'Inheritance' wins fiction prize
