Anita desai interesting facts
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Anita Desai: Biography
Anita Desai was born Anita Mazumdar on June 24, 1937, in Mussoorie, India. Her mother was a German immigrant, and her father was Bengali. Desai grew up speaking German with her family and Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, and English in the outside world. English was the primary language at school, and it was the first language in which she learned to read and write.
In 1947, when Desai was ten years old, India gained independence from Britain and split into India and Pakistan. Old Delhi, where Desai spent much of her childhood, was the capital of the British empire and combined elements of British, Islamic, and Hindi culture. The school Desai attended was nearly half Muslim, but all those girls left with the division of the two countries. This change greatly affected Desai and influenced some of her later writing.
Because of this, English became Desai's "literary language." 1 The books in her parents' home were in English, and Desai dreamed of having her own book among them.
Fig. 1- India gained independence when Desai was ten years old.
She attended Queen M
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Anita Desai
Harman Writer-In-Residence, Spring 2003
Anita Desai, the distinguished fiction writer, is the Spring 2003 Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence at Baruch College. Ms. Desai’s novels include Cry, The Peacock; Voices in the City; Bye-Bye, Blackbird; Where Shall We Go This Summer?; Fire on the Mountain; Clear Light of Day; In Custody; Baumgartner’s Bombay; Journey to Ithaca; and Fasting, Feasting. She is also the author of two collections of short stories, most recently Diamond Dust and Other Stories; several books for children, including The Peacock Garden, Cat on a Houseboat, and The Village by the Sea; and the screenplay for the screen adaptation of In Custody, filmed by Merchant Ivory Productions.
A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in England and an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Ms. Desai has been awarded numerous prizes and honors, including the Winifred Holtby Prize of the Royal Society of Literature, the Padma Sri Award from the Government of India, the Moravia Prize for Literature, and the Neil Gunn Prize for Interna
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Anita Desai Biography
Nationality: Indian. Born: Anita Mazumbar, Mussoorie, 1937. Education: Queen Mary's Higher Secondary School, New Delhi; Miranda House, University of Delhi, B.A. (honours) in English literature 1957. Career: Since 1963 writer; Purington Professor of English, Mount Holyoke College, 1988-93; professor of writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993—. Helen Cam Visiting Fellow, Girton College, Cambridge, 1986-87; Elizabeth Drew Professor, Smith College, 1987-88; Ashby Fellow, Clare Hall, Cambridge, 1989. Since 1972 member of the Sahitya Academy English Board. Awards: Royal Society of Literature Winifred Holtby prize, 1978; Sahitya Academy award, 1979; Guardian award, for children's book, 1982; Hadassah Magazine award, 1989; Tarak Nath Das award, 1989; Padma Sri award, 1989; Literary Lion Award, New York Public Library, 1993. Fellow, Royal Society of Literature, 1978; Girton College, Cambridge, 1988; Clare Hall, Cambridge, 1991. Agent: Deborah Rogers, Rogers Coleridge and White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN, England.
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