Anita Desai(1937-)

(Mussoorie, India) Currently living in U.S.A.

Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain.

Anita Desai is a distinguished Indo-Anglian novelist and has been

popularly known as a literary genius both in India and abroad. Anita
Desai’s search for truth through the presentation of individuals and the
exploration of their psyche has resulted in the sensitive portrayal of several
interesting characters both male and female.She is known as the Mother of
the Indian psychological novel genre. Her sensitive portrayal of the inner
feelings of her female characters is excellent.

1) Desai published her first novel, Cry The Peacock, in 1963. It presented
the psychological alienation of Maya,a young bride who is obsessed by
a childhood prophecy of disaster. She suffers from neurotic in a utter
loneliness and ultimately killed her husband Gautama.

Theme : Marital Discords and Alienation

The love Maya got from her father made her have a feeling that the world is a
toy especially made for her, seeing her morbidity her husband warns her from
turning neurotic and blames her father for spoiling her.Maya means illusion
and Gautama is the name of Buddha, who was able to rend the veil of Maya.
Thus Maya reveals the world of senses Gautama rejects it entirely.

because of the prophecy of astrologer that one of them must die after
their marriage, so Maya decide to kill Gautama because in her view, he
has rejected all that makes life worth living to her he is already died.

2) Voices in the City (1965) - Voices in the City tells the story of three
siblings as they struggle to find meaning while living in the Indian capital
 of Calcutta. The three siblings in Voices in the City are Monisha,
Nirode, and Amla.At the end of the novel, Monisha commits suicide by
burning herself alive in the bathroom.

3) Bye Bye Blackbird (1971)

4) Where Shall We Go This Summer? (1975)

5) Fire on the Mountain (1977) - . The novel mainly deals with the
loneliness and isolation as well as the resultant anguish and agony in
the deserted life of an old widow.

6) Games at Twilight (1978)

7) Clear Light Of Day (1980)

8) The Village By the Sea : An Indian family story (1982)

9) In Custody (1984)

10) Jouney to Ithaca (1995)

11) Fasting, Feasting (1999)

12) The Zigzag Way (2004)