Anita Desai

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Tales of Modern Motherhood

Hurricanes in Perfect Power

A BBC Between the Covers Big Jubilee Read Pick

Clear Light of Day

Fasting, Feasting

The Complete Stories

The Village by the Sea

The Artist of Disappearance

The Zigzag Way

The Home and the World

Games At Twilight

In Custody

Journey to Ithaca

Fire On The Mountain

Diamond Dust & Other Stories

Baumgartner's Bombay

A daring, colorful novel... Desai is a superb observer of the human race

One of the best English novelists writing in English

Hugo Baumgartner, the central character of Anita Desai's dazzling novel, is a wandering Jew all his life. From the agonising scenes of his childhood in pre-war Berlin, through his spell in business in Calcutta and then Bombay, he simply does not belong. Too dark for Hitler's society, he is too fair for India; he remains a firanghi, a foreigner, whatever he goes

Beautifully observed... Recovers a lost slice of history in its portrayal of a wounded survivor

Cleverly constructed, and full of sharp perceptions about human nature under the skin, whatever the colour

Anita Desai writes beautifully, employing an opulent vocabulary to great effect in her physical descriptions... The achievement of a superior writer

A book that puts to shame all the little epithets and pert cliches that praise may offer

A perceptive observation about the human race cleverly constructed and told with Desai's opulent vocabulary.

'A daring and colourful novel. A superb observer of the human race' New York Times Book Review

Anita Desai was born and educated in India. Her published works include many award-winning short story collections and novels, three of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, most recently Fasting, Feasting. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and lives in New York State.

Baumgartner's Bombay

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Anita Desai

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