A frustrated small-town scholar lands the opportunity of a lifetime, but only encounters more frustration in Anita Desai’s touching comic novel
Fasting, Feasting
Written by Anita Desai
- Shortlisted
- The Booker Prize 1999
- Published by Chatto & Windus
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Anita Desai’s intricate family drama examines the different ways in which two cultures assuage human hungers, desires and appetites
Uma, older daughter of a close-knit Indian family, remains in the household of her childhood tending to her parents’ needs. Meanwhile, younger son Arun spends the summer in Massachusetts with the Patton family and their freezer full of meat that nobody seems to wants to eat. Full of wit and sensuality, farce and deep pathos, Anita Desai’s novel cuts right to the heart of family life in two different cultures.
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
More about Anita Desai Other nominated books by Anita Desai
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
