Anita Desai
Anita Desai
Anita Mazumdar Desaiis 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 times; she received a Sahitya Academy Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain, from the Sahitya Academy, India's National Academy of Letters; she won the British Guardian Prize for The Village by the Sea...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 June 1937
writing thinking people
People think that because I write about India I must be trying to portray India in a way.
book writing thinking
When I am writing, I focus one hundred percent on my writing. Then, by the time I'm half way through the book, I'm already thinking about the ending.
school writing mind
Ever since I could first write I have been doing so. When I was taught how to write and read at school, I made up my mind that this was what I love to do best and this was the world I was going to occupy.
writing style trying
My style of writing is to allow the story to unfold on its own. I try not to structure my work too rigidly.
sports athlete writing
Someone who wants to write should make an effort to write a little something every day. Writing in this sense is the same as athletes who practice a sport every day to keep their skills honed.
focus half percent thinking time
When I am writing, I focus 100 percent on my writing. Then, by the time I'm half way through the book, I'm already thinking about the ending.
motivational disappointment book
Usually a feeling of disappointment follows the book, because what I hoped to write is not what I actually accomplished. However, it becomes a motivation to write the next book.
moon garden risk
...the moon that hung over the garden like some great priceless pearl, flawed and blemished with grey shadowy ridges as only a very great beauty can risk being.
wheels turns stills
The wheel turns and turns and turns: it never stops and stands still.
country past modern-india
India is a curious place that still preserves the past, religions, and its history. No matter how modern India becomes, it is still very much an old country.
romance fantasy telling-the-truth
I aim to tell the truth about any subject, not a romance or fantasy, not avoid the truth.
believe book past
The book begins and ends with the visits to give the impression of a tunnel into their ancestors and family history. I believe in going backwards into the past - I felt I was digging a tunnel back to the past.
character trying stories
I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.
self my-family conscious
When I was very young, I used to share much of what I wrote with my family, but as I got older and more self-conscious, it became a much more private process.