NRI author Kiran Desai wins Man Booker prize

NRI author Kiran Desai wins Man Booker prize
Friday, October 15, 2006

India-born novelist Kiran Desai has been named the the winner of
the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The Inheritance
of Loss, published by Hamish Hamilton.

Her winning book, The Inheritance of Loss, is a story rich with
sadness about globalisation and with joy at the small surviving
intimacies of Indian village life.

It is radiant, funny and moving family saga and has been described
by reviewers as ‘the best, sweetest, most delightful novel’.

The 35-year-old author, daughter of well-known Indian novelist
Anita Desai — to whom ‘The Inheritance of Loss’ is dedicated —
is the youngest woman to win the award. Her mother Anita Desai has
been shortlisted three times since 1980 for the Booker Prize but
has never won. This year, however, her daughter, Kiran, has won
the acclaimed literary prize.

Kiran Desai was born in India in 1971, and was educated in India,
in England, and the United States. Kiran studied creative writing
at Columbia University. She is the author of the critically acclaimed
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss. Over
and above her prize of £50,000, Kiran Desai is guaranteed
a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide and makes all
Indians proud.