SOURCE: "The Poet in All His Squalor," in The New York Times Book Review, March 3, 1985, p. 7.

Below, Mojtabai offers a favorable review of In Custody.

We are all authors. Adding here, deleting there, we people the world with our needs: with friends, lovers, ciphers, enemies, villains—and heroes. The trick is most evident in the case of heroes. As we glance from the great, perfected poem to the shambling, imperfect poet, we begin at once to recast what seems so unedifying to our sight. Surely, we tell ourselves, the author of a poem like this must lead a transfigured life.

Anita Desai's latest novel, In Custody, is a comedy that turns upon such an expectation. The book is set in contemporary India and centers on the world of Urdu poetry. For a number of reasons—some familiar and universal, some less familiar and native to the tradition—Persian...