Anthologies#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Poetry of Our World: An International Anthology of Contemporary Poetry |
2000 |
Buy |
Collections#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Games at Twilight |
1978 |
Buy |
| Scholar and Gypsy |
1996 |
Buy |
| Diamond Dust: Stories |
2000 |
Buy |
| Collected Stories |
2008 |
Buy |
| The Artist of Disappearance |
2011 |
Buy |
| The Complete Stories |
2017 |
Buy |
Non-Fiction#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Peasant Struggles in India |
1984 |
Buy |
Standalone Novels#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Cry, the Peacock |
1963 |
Buy |
| Voices in the City |
1965 |
Buy |
| Bye Bye Blackbird |
1968 |
Buy |
| The Peacock Garden |
1974 |
Buy |
| Where Shall We Go This Summer? |
1975 |
Buy |
| Fire on the Mountain |
1977 |
Buy |
| Clear Light of Day |
1980 |
Buy |
| The Village by the Sea |
1982 |
Buy |
| In Custody |
1984 |
Buy |
| Baumgartner’s Bombay |
1989 |
Buy |
| Journey to Ithaca |
1995 |
Buy |
| Fasting, Feasting |
1999 |
Buy |
| The Zigzag Way |
2004 |
Buy |
| Rosarita |
2024 |
Buy |
Anita Desai is an Indian novelist and short story writer who has been publishing fiction since 1963. Born in Mussoorie, India, in 1937 to a German mother and Bengali father, Desai grew up speaking German at home and learned English, Hindi, and Bengali through school and her surroundings. Her debut novel, Cry, the Peacock, introduced the psychological intensity and attention to interior life that would define her career.
Desai’s best-known novels include Clear Light of Day (1980), set in Old Delhi and exploring a family fractured by the Partition of India, and In Custody (1984), about a Hindi lecturer drawn into the orbit of a fading Urdu poet. Both were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, as was Fasting, Feasting (1999), which contrasts an Indian woman’s constrained domestic life with her brother’s alienation as a student in America. In Custody was adapted into a 1993 film by Ismail Merchant.
Her short fiction, collected in volumes like Games at Twilight (1978), Diamond Dust (2000), and The Complete Stories (2017), shares the same close focus on ordinary people caught in difficult circumstances. Desai taught creative writing at MIT for many years. Her daughter, Kiran Desai, won the Booker Prize in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss. In 2024, at age 86, Anita Desai published Rosarita, her first novel in twenty years.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books has Anita Desai written?
Anita Desai has written 22 books across four series.
What was Anita Desai's first book?
Anita Desai’s first book is Cry, the Peacock, published in 1963.
Has Anita Desai won the Booker Prize?
Anita Desai has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, for Clear Light of Day (1980), In Custody (1984), and Fasting, Feasting (1999). She has not won the prize, but these nominations established her as one of the most recognized Indian novelists writing in English.