Anita Desai

Anita Desai was born in 1937 in the hilltown of Mussoorie of a Bengali father and a German mother. She was educated in Delhi where she received an AB in English Literature from the University of Delhi.

Desai has been teaching MIT's Program in Writing since 1993--the first professorial appointment by the university in fiction writing in 20 years.

Her published works include short stories, children's books, and eight novels. Two of the novels, Clear Light of Day (1980) and In Custody (1984), were short-listed for the Booker Prize.

Anita Desai is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London and she has been a member of the Advisory Board for English of the National Academy of Letters in Delhi. She is also a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been Visiting Fellow at Girton College, Cambridge, in England.

She has taught writing at Smith College and has been the Purington Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College in the United States.

Desai is married and has four children.

 Awards & Honours

 Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London.
1982: Guardian Award for Children's Fiction for The Village by the Sea
1978: National Academy of Letters Award for Fire on the Mountain