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♥ Who is she?

♥What are her opinions about writing?

What are her books about?

What is her life like today?

♥ Fasting, Feasting (1999) by Anita Desai

♥ An Interview with Anita Desai

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What does Anita Desai look like?Anita Desai is a famous Indian writer. She is in her seventies. She is of average build and has got wavy greying hair, wide open, sand and sparking dark eyes. She seems to be quite Indian in her appearance.

What is Anita Desai like?

In my opinion she is creative, imaginative, quick-witted, sensitive and big-hearted.

She always tries to express what she considers the truth

♥ Who is she?

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Bibliographyof Anita Desai

What is her life like today? She is married and she has 4 children. She lives in the United States, where she is Professor of Writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She enjoys travelling, reading and working in her garden. When she travels she goes to Mexico, Europe and occasionally to India.

She says that having lived independently for 15 years in the West, she found she could not return

to a dependent life in India except on visits.

•She was born in Mussoorie, India, 24th June, 1937.• Her mother was German and her father Indian •She obtained a degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi .

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Anita Desaiand her opinions about writing

I find it is in the process of writing that I am able to think…

… , to feel, and to

perform at the highest

pitch.

It is a necessity

to me.

Writing is to me a process of discovering

the truth ...

“I have been writing, since the age of 7,

as instinctively as I breathe

While I feel about India as

an Indian, I think about it

as an

outsider.My novels are part of my private effort to make the material of my life meaningful and to have shape.

I was "writing in privacy, even secrecy" and that "seemed very lonely".

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She is a novelist, short-story writer and

children's author

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Anita Desai • She has written 14 novels and 2 collections of short

stories and most of her books deal with characters who find themselves going against the current and therefore they are solitary, isolated beings themselves. The books are about not going with the stream but against it.

• Her novels include

• Fire on the Mountain (1977)• Clear Light of Day (1980)• In Custody (1984) • Fasting, Feasting (1999)• In Custody • The Village by the Sea (1982), won the Guardian Children's Fiction

Award.• The Zig Zag Way (2004)•

Her most recent works, like Fasting, Feasting, have been short-listed for the Booker Prize and confirmed her international reputation .

• She believes her feministic style of writing comes from the changing times when she was growing up "The feminist movement in India is very new and a younger generation of readers in India tends to be rather impatient with my books and to think of them as books about completely helpless women, hopeless women. "(Desai)

What are her books about?

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Fasting, Feasting tells the story of an Indian family with two daughters and single son. The mother and the elder daughter, Uma, open the story with a busy domestic scene: the preparation of a parcel for Arun, her son who is studying in America while his elder sister, Uma, is living under MamaPapa's demanding rule.

She also deals with the distribution of power and its hierarchy in the family. The parents were involved in the structures of patriarchy and they did not allow their children to develop their own personalities.

Desai's novel Fasting, Feasting deals with the condition of women In this book Uma, the main character of this novel, represents the subordinate role that women play in India , according to the custom of arranged marriages and give dowry. In this case her parents desperately try to arrange a good marriage for her with disastrous consequences.

Fasting, Feasting (1999) by Anita Desai, Booker Prize finalist.

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• Uma is a frustrated woman who lives in a traditional structure. For the girls, the future is marriage and to have children. The arranged marriages produce their own painful comedy when Uma proves difficult to pair off: "Mama worked hard at trying to dispose of Uma, sent her photograph around to everyone who advertised ... but it was always returned with the comment 'We are looking for someone taller/fairer/more educated… Twice the family is duped into handing over a dowry as part of an unsuccessful engagement -- a shame that affects Uma forever after, though she is blameless in both situations.

• However, Aruna's marriage is a glamorous triumph, taking her off to a new metropolitan life in Bombay.

Fasting, Feasting and the Condition of Women

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Fasting and feasting defines two distinct cultures : Indian and American

◘ Anita’s assertions: There isn't a great contrast in lives, there are always parallel lives between an Indian and an American middle-class family

◘ Her books show how different cultures can influence the future of young people (particularly women) in the sense of the possibility of making their own decision to live their own lives.

• Fast•(those who have little

food,freedom, …)

• Feasting •(those who have too much food,

freedom, opportunities)

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It captures the physical and emotional aspects of the characters’ lives

Fasting, Feasting is a novel that compares two cultures. In beautifully detailed prose Desai draws the foods and textures of an Indian small town and of an American suburb. In both, she suggests family life is a complex mixture of generosity and meanness, license, restriction and lack of communication.

The novel's subtle revelation is in the unlikely similarities

In one dark moment, Arun recognizes in the Pattons' bulimic daughter a version of his own unhappy sister Uma, and the shock provokes a reflection on these two frustrated women: "But what is plenty? What is not? Can one tell the difference?" Desai's novel is a moving, eloquent exploration of that question.

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What is your advice to young writers to get remarkable

achievement?

Important ideas

Do you have a particular time to read and write ?

Yes, I keep the morning completely clear, I write in the morning without interruption.

●It is not easy to became a writer because you have to face great difficulties

● Be confident and then think about writing.

● To begin it is important to write short stories and when you see that you are good at doing it you can write long stories.

● Try to be persistent and to have it printed in magazines or journals

● Be determined and push for it to be published and sold.

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