Kiran Desai (born 3 September 1971) is an

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n author. Her novel ''

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 Booker Prize for that year, the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007, and the 20 ...

'' won the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the

National Book Critics Circle The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization (501(c)(3)) with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the National Book Critics C ...

Fiction Award. In January 2015,

The Economic Times ''The Economic Times'' is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. It is owned by The Times Group. ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961. As of 2012, it is the world's second-most widely read English-language bu ...

listed her as one of 20 "most influential" global Indian women.

Early and personal life

Kiran Desai is the daughter of novelist

Anita Desai Anita Desai, born Anita Mazumdar (born 24 June 1937) is an Indian novelist and the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a writer she has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three ti ...

. Kiran was born in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

, then spent the early years of her life in

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...

and

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. She studied at

Cathedral and John Connon School The Cathedral & John Connon School is a co-educational private school founded in 1860 and located in Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra.England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

for a year before moving to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Kiran Desai studied creative writing at

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...

Hollins University Hollins University is a private university in Hollins, Virginia. Founded in 1842 as Valley Union Seminary in the historical settlement of Botetourt Springs, it is one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States ...

, and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Work

Desai's first novel, '' Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard'', was published in 1998 and received accolades from figures as

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...

. It won the Betty Trask Award, a prize given by the

Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to protect the rights and further the interests of authors. , it represents over 12,000 members and ass ...

for best new novels by citizens of the

Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the ...

under the age of 35. Her second book, ''

,'' (2006) was widely praised by critics throughout

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

, Europe and the United States. It won the 2006 Man Booker Prize, as well as the 2006

Fiction Award. Desai became the youngest-ever woman to win the Booker Prize at the age of 35 (this was later broken by

Eleanor Catton Eleanor Catton (born 24 September 1985) is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International In ...

in 2013). In August 2008, Desai was a guest on ''

Private Passions ''Private Passions'' is a weekly music discussion programme that has been running since 15 April 1995 on BBC Radio 3, presented by the composer Michael Berkeley. The production was formerly made by Classic Arts Productions, a British radio a ...

'', the biographical music discussion programme hosted by Michael Berkeley on BBC Radio 3. In May 2007 she was the featured author at the inaugural Asia House Festival of Cold Literature. Desai was awarded a 2013 Berlin Prize Fellowship at the

American Academy in Berlin The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...

. Desai lives in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. She stated in 2017 that she had been working for over a decade on a new book "about power… about a young Indian woman out in India and the world", which was slated to be out the following year. The novel has not been released; as of 2021, Desai has published no books since her Booker Prize-winning second novel in 2006.

Bibliography

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References

External links

Legacies, Loss and Literature
''Nirali Magazine'', December 2006
SAWNET biography

Kiran Desai at the American Academy Berlin as Holtzbrinck Fellow
{{DEFAULTSORT:Desai, Kiran 1971 births Living people American Hindus 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists Bennington College alumni Booker Prize winners Columbia University School of the Arts alumni English-language writers from India Hollins University alumni Indian emigrants to the United States Indian people of German descent American novelists of Indian descent American women novelists American women writers of Indian descent Cathedral and John Connon School alumni Women writers from Chandigarh Novelists from Delhi 21st-century Indian novelists 20th-century Indian novelists Indian women novelists 20th-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian writers Women writers from Delhi 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers

Early and personal life

Work

Bibliography

See also

References

External links