Biography

She was awarded the Italian honor of Alberto Monrovia Literature Prize in 1999 for her services and contributions to literature.

She was a finalist for the Booker Price in 1980 for "Clear Light of Day," 1984 for "In Custody," and 1999 for "Fasting, Feasting.".

She was awarded the Neil Gunn Price in 1993 for her services to literature.

She is the mother of author, Kiran Desai.

She was awarded the 1978 National Academy of Letters Award and the Winifred Holtby Memorial Price for "Fire on the Mountain".

Perhaps that line by Emily Dickinson sums everything up: "Memory is a strange bell – jubilee and knell." I suppose that's been ringing away in my head all these years.

Poets go directly to what they want to get across – they don't amble around, they cut to it with a tremendous immediacy that affects one.

So often one's writing is prophetic. When you write, you are in touch with another force, not the everyday force you employ, you retreat so deep into yourself, you don't suspect those feelings had been there.

Why am I constantly writing about the past? Well, I probably couldn't approach the present directly, because I was carrying all of this past with me.

I think everything one reads tends to linger on in one's writing, even after one's forgotten the book one's read.