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INDIAN AUTHOR MAKES MAN BOOKER SHORTLIST
By Nitish S. Rele

Keep your fingers crossed for Kiran Desai, author of “The Inheritance of Loss” (Grove Press; $14 paperback; 384 pages). The 35-year-old is one of only six on the shortlist of the Man Booker prize (50,000 pounds) to be announced Oct. 10 in London.

Others on the shortlist are Kate Grenville's “The Secret River,” M J Hyland's “Carry Me Down,” Hisham Matar's “In the Country of Men,” Edward St Aubyn's “Mother's Milk” and Sarah Waters' “The Night Watch.” Each of the shortlisted writers will receive 2,500 pounds.

Now in its 38th year, the Man Booker Prize is considered prestigious by writers and publishers alike.

Desai’s first book “Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard” won a Betty Trask award (awarded to traditional or romantic first novels).

“The Inheritance of Loss” is set in a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas, where an embittered judge, hoping only to retire in peace, finds his orphaned granddaughter. Sai has arrived on his doorstep. Watching over her distractedly, the judge’s cook thinks of his own son, Biju, a young man hopelessly hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another – trying to stay a step ahead of the INS – on an elusive search for a green card.

The book has received rave reviews from critics. “Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory,” writes The New Yorker.

Educated in India, England and U.S., Desai received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University, N.Y. She is currently a student at that university’s creative writing course.

And yes, she is the daughter of well-known novelist Anita Desai. Like mother, like daughter, one must say.



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