Anita Desai Age, Husband, Children, Family, Biography & More
Anita Desai Age, Husband, Children, Family, Biography & More
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Hometown: Mussoorie
Age: 86 Years
Profession: Novelist
| Bio/Wiki | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Anita Mazumdar (before marriage) |
| Profession | Novelist |
| Career | |
| First Novel | ‘Cry, the Peacock’ (1963) |
| Awards, Honours, Achievements | • 1978- Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for 'Fire on the Mountain' • 1978- National Academy of Letters Award for 'Fire on the Mountain' • 1980- Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) for 'Clear Light of Day' • 1983- Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for 'The Village by the Sea: an Indian family story' • 1984- Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) for 'In Custody' • 1993- Neil Gunn Prize • 1999- Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) for 'Fasting, Feasting' • 2000- Alberto Moravia Prize for Literature (Italy) • 2007- Sahitya Akademi Fellowship • 2003- Benson Medal of Royal Society of Literature • 2014- Padma Bhushan |
| Personal Life | |
| Date of Birth | 24 June 1937 (Thursday) |
| Age (as of 2023) | 86 Years |
| Birthplace | Mussoorie, British India (now in Uttarakhand, India) |
| Zodiac sign | Cancer |
| Signature |  |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Hometown | Mussoorie |
| School | Queen Mary’s Higher Secondary School, Delhi |
| College/University | Miranda House (University of Delhi), Delhi |
| Educational Qualification | Bachelor of Arts in English Literature (1957) |
| Controversies | • In 1990, she attracted controversy after she wrote an essay titled 'A Secret Connivance' for the Times Literary Supplement. In the essay, she wrote that most of the women connive under their own subordination for some set mythic roles. check sources The Guardian • The character 'Nur Shahjahanabadi' from Anita's novel 'In Custody' (1984) was loosely based on a Pakistani Urdu poet. In 1994, a Bollywood film of the same title was released in which Shashi Kapoor played the role of 'Nur,' a poet living a dissolute life. However, the followers of the Urdu poet got offended by the depiction of the poet both in the novel and the film, resulting in a lot of backlash for Anita. check sources Cairn.info |
| Relationships & More | |
| Marital Status | Widow |
| Family | |
| Husband/Spouse | Ashvin Desai (businessman and an author) |
| Children | Sons- 2 • Rahul Desai • Arjun Desai Daughters- 2 • Kiran Desai (Author)  • Tani Desai |
| Parents | Father- D. N. Mazumdar (Bengali businessman) Mother- Toni Nime (German immigrant) |
| Siblings | She has a brother and 2 sisters. |
| Favourites | |
| Poet(s) | Rainer Maria Rilke, C. P. Cavafy, Osip Mandelstam, Brodsky |
Some Lesser Known Facts About Anita Desai
Anita Desai is an Indian novelist who is famous for her books like ‘Cry, The Peacock’ (1963), ‘Where Shall We Go This Summer?’ (1975), ‘Games at Twilight and Other Stories’ (1978), and ‘The Artist of Disappearance’ (2011).
In 1958, an Indian poet P. Lal founded Writers Workshop at his residence in Kolkata’s Lake Gardens along with Anita Desai and other prominent writers including Deb Kumar Das, Sasthibrata Chakravarti, and Jai Ratan. check sources The Hindu
Anita Desai started her teaching career in 1993, as a creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also held positions like the Elizabeth Drew Visiting Professor at Smith College, the Gildersleeve Professor at Barnard College, the Purington Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College, and a visiting scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy. From 1993 to 2002, she served as an Emeritus John E. Burchard professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Anita is settled in the United States and is serving as the Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. check sources Weissman School of Arts and Sciences
From 1977 to 1980, Anita Desai consecutively published novels like ‘Fire on the Mountain,’ ‘Games at Twilight and Other Stories,’ ‘The Peacock Garden,’ and ‘Clear Light of Day.’
Cover of Anita Desai’s novel ‘The Peacock Garden’ (1979)
In 1984, she published a novel titled ‘In Custody,’ which was a novel set in Delhi. The novel was then adapted by Merchant Ivory Productions into an English-language film of the same name, and it starred actors like Shashi Kapoor , Shabana Azmi , and Om Puri . check sources Los Angeles Times
The poster of the film ‘In Custody’ (1984), an adaptation of Anita Desai’s same-titled novel
She is well-versed in many languages including German, Bengali, Hindi, and English.
She began to read and write in English at the age of seven and published her first novel at the age of nine.
Anita Desai’s husband, Ashvin Desai was also an author who published his first novel titled ‘Between Eternities: Ideas on Life and Cosmos’ in 2008; he earlier worked as a director of a software company. check sources Penguin Random House India
When Anita Desai’s children were little, she and her husband used to take them to Thal (a place near Alibag), Maharashtra, India, during which she set up her novel ‘The Village By the Sea’ (1982). check sources Toshniwal College
Anita’s father had gone to Berlin to study engineering, and that’s when he met a sculptor Goerge Kolbe, who introduced him to Anita’s mother, Toni Nime. check sources The Guardian
Anita’s daughter, Kiran Desai , is a 2006 Man Booker Prize winner, and she was also ranked 17th on the list of ‘Global Indian Women: Top 20 India-born & globally successful women from business and arts.’ check sources The Economic Times
She has taught at many colleges like Mount Holyoke College (Massachusetts), Baruch College (New York), and Smith College (Massachusetts). Anita Desai is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and of Girton College, Cambridge.
Anita Desai is also a writer at ‘The New York Review of Books.’
She is the Spring 2003 Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence at Baruch College, New York. check sources Weissman School of Arts and Sciences
In 1999, she published ‘Fasting, Feasting,’ and it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for fiction in the same year.
Cover of Anita Desai’s novel ‘Fasting, Feasting’ (1999)
In 2000, Anita published ‘Diamond Dust and Other Stories,’ followed by ‘The Zigzag Way’ in 2004.
Cover of Anita Desai’s novel ‘The Zigzag Way’ (2004)
In 2011, Anita Desai published a collection of 3 novellas titled ‘The Artist of Disappearance.’ The book includes novels titled ‘The Museum of Final Journeys,’ ‘Translator Translated,’ and ‘The Artist of Disappearance.’
Cover of Anita Desai’s collection of novella ‘The Artist of Disappearance’ (2011)
Anita’s mother had a piano, albums of Beethoven and Brahms, and a German library with leather books with German script written in them; however, after Anita’s father’s death, her mother left Delhi and gave all her books to the German department of the Delhi University. When Anita Desai’s husband, Ashvin Desai, passed away in 2020, they donated their family library to Gargi College in Delhi. check sources The Guardian
She considered writers like Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy, and D.H Lawrence as her biggest influence in writing.
In 2015, Anita Desai came in support of the authors and writers who were returning their awards and honours to protest against the Sahitya Akademi for its failure to defend the right of question in descent of authors/writers. check sources The Indian Express
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