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Anita Desai

Anita Desai was born and brought up in India and has written widely for both adults and children. She has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and has won the Guardian Fiction Award. She is the mother of Booker Prize-winning author Kiran Desai.

Name
Anita Desai

When were you born?
24th June 1937, Mussoorie India

What’s your favourite book?
Different ones all the time. Just one single one? Hard to choose amongst so many - but perhaps To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

What’s your favourite film?
‘Pather Panchali’ by Satyajit Ray and ‘Seventh Seal’ by Bergman

What’s your favourite song?
I really don’t have one

What’s your most treasured possession?
My house, I suppose

When did you start writing?
When I learnt how to at age 7

Where do your ideas and inspirations come from?
One stumbles across them in places one knows or goes to, people one meets, experiences one has

My tips for becoming a successful author:
Read, read, read
Learn to be a good critic - of what you read and above all of what you write

What’s your favourite place in the world and why?
Allow me two, or three: Venice in Italy, Cambridge in England and a small hill town in the high desert of Mexico

What are your hobbies?
Working in my garden

If you hadn’t been an author, what do you think you would have been?
I would be sad and have an empty life if I weren’t a writer