Anita Desai is an Indian novelist and short story writer. She is known for her sensitive portrayal of the inner feelings of her female characters. Many of Anita Desai's novels explore tensions between family members and the alienation of middle-class women. In her later novels, Anita Desai wrote on varied themes such as German anti-Semitism, the demise of traditions, and Western stereotypical views of India.
Background
Anita Mazumdar Desai was born on the 24th of June in 1937 in Mussoorie, India, to a German mother, Toni Nime, and a Bengali businessman, D. N. Mazumdar. She grew up speaking German at home and Bengali, Urdu, Hindi and English outside the house. Although German is her first language she did not visit Germany until later in life as an adult. She first learned to read and write in English at school and as a result English became her "literary language". She began to write in English at the age of seven and published her first story at the age of nine. She was a student at Queen Mary's Higher Secondary School in Delhi. The following year she married Ashvin Desai. They have four children.
Education
Anita Desai was accepted at Miranda House, an elite women's college in Delhi, and in 1957 at the age of 20 she received a B.A. with Honors in English Literature from Delhi University.
Career
In 1993 she became a creative writing teacher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Desai has taught at Mount Holyoke College, Baruch College and Smith College. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and of Girton College, Cambridge University. In addition, she writes for the New York Review of Books.