Anita Desai discusses how her deeply personal Booker Prize shortlisted novel Clear Light of Day resonated with readers and critics when first published in 1980, and why its themes remain relevant today.
Anita Desai
Anita Desai has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times – 1980, 1984 and in 1999. She was born in Mussoorie, India and is the author of many novels and short stories
She is the Emerita John E Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Royal Society of Literature.
All nominated books
Anita Desai’s accomplished family drama explores how the unexplored crises of childhood can reveal new worlds - if courage can be found to face them
A frustrated small-town scholar lands the opportunity of a lifetime, but only encounters more frustration in Anita Desai’s touching comic novel
Anita Desai’s intricate family drama examines the different ways in which two cultures assuage human hungers, desires and appetites
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Eight Booker-nominated books about India by women writers
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The Booker in the 1980s: 10 novels that are well worth revisiting
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The Booker Prize guide to… the partition of India
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