Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai is an Indian author. Her novel The Inheritance of Loss won the 2006 Man Booker Prize^[1] and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award.^[2] In January 2015, The Economic Times listed her as one of 20 most influential global Indian women.^[3]

Kiran Desai
Desai reading on behalf of Salman Rushdie at the 2024 National Book Awards finalist reading
Born	New Delhi, India
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	Columbia University
Period	1998–present
Notable works	The Inheritance of Loss Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
Notable awards	Man Booker Prize 2006
Relatives	Anita Desai (mother)

Early life and education

Kiran Desai is the daughter of author Anita Desai.^{[citation needed]} Kiran was born in Delhi, then spent the early years of her life in Punjab and in Mumbai, where she studied at Cathedral and John Connon School.^{[citation needed]} She left India at 14, and she and her mother lived in England for a year, before moving to the United States.^{[citation needed]}

Desai studied creative writing at Bennington College, Hollins University, and Columbia University.^[4]

Work

Desai's first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was published in 1998 and received accolades from such figures as Salman Rushdie.^[5] It won the Betty Trask Award,^[6] a prize given by the Society of Authors for best new novels by citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations under the age of 35.^[7]

Her second book, The Inheritance of Loss, (2006) was widely praised by critics throughout Asia, Europe and the United States. The novel is set in the Himalayas and explores themes of identity and culture clash, as well as the impact of colonialism.^[8] It won the 2006 Man Booker Prize, as well as the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award.^[2] Desai became the youngest-ever woman to win the Booker Prize at the age of 35 (this record was broken by Eleanor Catton in 2013).^[9]

In August 2008, Desai was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme hosted by Michael Berkeley on BBC Radio 3.^[10] In May 2007, she was the featured author at the inaugural Asia House Festival of Cold Literature.^{[citation needed]}

In 2008, the Gates Foundation project invited Desai to report on a community of sex workers in the coastal state of Andhra Pradesh.^[11]

In 2009, she was presented with the Columbia University Medal for Excellence.^[11]

Desai was awarded a 2013 Berlin Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin.^{[citation needed]}

In 2017, Desai said that she had been working for more than a decade on a new book "about power… about a young Indian woman out in India and the world".^[12] In December 2024, it was announced that after a break of nearly two decades, her next novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, would be published in the fall of 2025 by Hogarth, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group.^[13] In July 2025, the novel was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.^[14]

Bibliography

• Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. Faber and Faber. 1998. ISBN 0-571-19336-6.
• The Inheritance of Loss. Hamish Hamilton Ltd. 2006. ISBN 0-241-14348-9.

See also

• Desai
• Indian English literature
• Indian Writers