Book Review- Collected Stories, Anita Desai

 Published by Random House India

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edition language

English

 

 

Synopsis-

 

Buried resentments, unexpected disappointments, new friendships, small acts of cruelty, journeys that take you back to where you started. With trademark compassion and tender irony, Anita Desai’s short stories give us familiar worlds made unfamiliar, to wonderful effect. An ageing couple is stranded in a stultifying Delhi summer by the visit of a roguish old Oxford friend, who trades on his charm; an American woman turns to hippies living in the Indian hills, homesick for the farmlands of Vermont; a dog terrorizes the neighbourhood but is cherished by his stern master; a Delhi girl of slender means finds a new kind of freedom with her young friends, in her barsati home; a peaceful game of hide and seek turns into a nightmare; a businessman sees his own death. In one masterly volume, for the first time ever, here are Anita Desai’s collected stories —including Diamond Dust and Games at Twilight.

 

My Review-

 

This book is a volume of short stories by Anita Desai with a soulful connection. Published by Random House this book is one of a gem. What basically happens when you write short stories is that while you try to give it that usual fast pace, you tend to ignore the detailing and the chances of capturing those little intricacies goes down drastically. In Collected Stories, Desai completely surprises me with her abilities to balance between the two. The variation of plots, characters and emotions take me aback every time. When you try finding a connection between all of them, what you get is an asymmetrical pattern of tales that share a soul.

About The Author-

 

born- June 24, 1937 in India    

gender- female

genre- Literature & Fiction, Children's Books   

Anita Desai was born in 1937. Her published works include adult novels, children's books and short stories. SHe is a member of the Advisory Board for English of the National Academy of Letters in Delhi and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London. Anita Mazumdar Desai is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been shortlisted for the Booker prize three times. Her daughter, the author Kiran Desai, is the winner of the 2006 Booker prize.