<div>Disappointed by his professional and social position, an entitled and officious junior civil servant imagines that his life will change when a mysterious old man promises to lead him to a museum filled with priceless treasures.</div>

The Museum of Final Journeys

<div>Distraught by her own lack of accomplishment -- especially in comparison to that of a childhood rival who has become a famous and successful publisher -- a middle-aged woman has the opportunity of a lifetime: to translate the work of an unknown literary star and, in the process, impress the woman she most admires.</div>

Translator Translated

<div>Finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction &ldquo;The excellent strength [the novellas] share is a gracefulness and dreamlike sonority, reminiscent of writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and W.G. Sebald, wherein strange evolutions of solitary lives are the rule, and readers are held by the stately, hypnotic dignity of the voice that tells them.&rdquo; &ndash; San Francisco Chronicle Set in modern India, these three novellas move beyond the cities to places still haunted by the past, and to characters who are, each in their own way, masters of self-effacement. An unnamed government official is called upon to inspect a faded mansion of forgotten treasures where he discovers a surprise &quot;relic.&quot; A translator blurs the line between writer and translator, and in so doing risks unraveling her desires and achievements. In the title novella, a hermit hidden away in the woods with a secret is discovered by a film crew, which compels him to withdraw even further until he magically disappears . . . Rich and evocative, remarkable in their clarity and sensuous in their telling, these novellas remind us of the extraordinary yet delicate power of this pre-eminent writer. &ldquo;Desai, at her best, offers enchanting, subtle, and deeply observed portraits of layered characters trapped between worlds.&rdquo; &ndash; Daily Beast &ldquo;Lingers in the memory the same way these landscapes and people of India prove impossible to forget.&rdquo; &ndash; Boston Globe </div>

The Artist of Disappearance

<div>A collection of stories stretching from India to New England to Mexico from the author of Fasting, Feasting&mdash;an &ldquo;undeniable genius&rdquo; (TheWashington Post Book World). The men and women in these nine tales set out on journeys that suddenly go beyond the pale&mdash;or surprisingly lead them back to where they started. In the mischievous title story, a beloved dog brings nothing but disaster to his obsessed master; in other tales, old friendships and family ties stir up buried feelings, demanding either renewed commitment or escape. And in the final exquisite story, a young woman discovers a new kind of freedom in Delhi&rsquo;s rooftop community. This is a richly diverse, &ldquo;quiet but deeply satisfying&rdquo; collection of stories, from a three-time Man Booker Prize finalist (Kirkus Reviews). &ldquo;Anita Desai is one of the most brilliant and subtle writers ever to have described the meeting of eastern and western culture . . . Both serious and wonderfully entertaining.&rdquo; &mdash;Alison Lurie, Pulitzer Prize&ndash;winning author of Foreign Affairs &ldquo;Served up with characteristic perspicuity, subtle humor and attention to the little hypocrisies of the middle class.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly</div>

Diamond Dust

<div>Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize: A &ldquo;rich, Chekhovian novel&rdquo; about family and forgiveness from the acclaimed author of Fire on the Mountain (The New Yorker). At the heart of this &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; novel are the moving relationships between the estranged members of the Das family (The Washington Post Book World). Bimla is a dissatisfied but ambitious teacher at a women&rsquo;s college who lives in her childhood home, where she cares for her mentally challenged brother, Baba. Tara is her younger, unambitious sister, married and with children of her own. Raja is their popular, brilliant, and successful brother. When Tara returns for a visit with Bimla and Baba, old memories and tensions resurface, blending into a domestic drama that leads to beautiful and profound moments of self-understanding. Set in the vividly portrayed environs of Old Delhi, &ldquo;Clear Light of Day does what only the very best novels can do: it totally submerges us. It also takes us so deeply into another world that we almost fear we won&rsquo;t be able to climb out again&rdquo; (The New York Times Book Review). &ldquo;Passages must be read and reread so that you savor their imagery, their language, and their wisdom.&rdquo; &mdash;The Washington Post Book World &ldquo;[A] thoroughly universal tale of unhealable family hurts . . . Distinctively shaded with enticing glimpses of India&rsquo;s Hindu middle-class in shabby decline.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews, starred review</div>

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Clear Light of Day

<div>A young American in Mexico discovers his family&rsquo;s past&mdash;and a present-day danger&mdash;in this &ldquo;elegant, exquisite&rdquo; novel of suspense (Elle). Eric is a newly minted historian just out of graduate school, plagued by self-doubt over both his past choices and his future options. With no clear direction, he follows his lover, Em, when she travels to the Yucatan for her scientific research, but ends up alone in this foreign place. And so he pursues his own private quest, tracing his family&rsquo;s history to a Mexican ghost town, where, a hundred years earlier, young Cornish miners&mdash;among them Eric&rsquo;s grandparents&mdash;toiled to the death. Now, in place of the Cornish workers, the native Huichol Indians suffer the cruelty of the mines. When he inquires into their lives, Eric provokes the ire of their self-appointed savior, Dona Vera. Known as the &ldquo;Queen of the Sierra,&rdquo; Dona Vera is the widow of a mining baron who has dedicated her fortune to preserving the Huichol culture. But her formidable presence belies a dubious past. The zigzag paths of these characters converge on the Day of the Dead, bringing together past and present in a moment of powerful epiphany. Haunting and atmospheric, with splashes of exuberant color and darker violence, The Zigzag Way is &ldquo;a beautifully rendered combination of history, folklore, and modern fiction&rdquo; (Entertainment Weekly), from a Booker Prize finalist. &ldquo;Long before Jhumpa Lahiri . . . long before Monica Ali . . . another novelist was offering us exquisitely detailed portraits of bodies in transit [and] classes in the art of sly and sensuous fiction . . . Anita Desai was a global, migrant writer before such a thing was fashionable.&rdquo; &mdash;Time &ldquo;Almost unbearably suspenseful.&rdquo; &mdash;The Boston Globe &ldquo;A hypnotic journey.&rdquo; &mdash;San Jose Mercury News</div>

The Zigzag Way

<div>This Man Booker Prize finalist is a &ldquo;splendid novel&rdquo; about siblings and their very different lives in India and America (The Wall Street Journal). Uma, the plain spinster daughter of a close-knit Indian family, is trapped at home, smothered by her overbearing parents and their traditions&mdash;unlike her ambitious younger sister, who has made a &ldquo;good&rdquo; marriage and managed to escape. Meanwhile their brother Arun, the disappointing son and heir, is studying in America, living in a Massachusetts suburb with the Patton family&mdash;where he finds himself bewildered by the culture that surrounds him . . . &ldquo;Such witty writing . . . You take its suffering characters to heart.&rdquo; &mdash;The Boston Globe &ldquo;Stunning . . . Looks gently but without sentimentality at an Indian family that, despite Western influence, is bound by Eastern traditions.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly (starred review) &ldquo;Desai&rsquo;s characters are wonderfully, fallibly human as they wend their way through the maze of everyday domestic tensions.&rdquo; &mdash;San Francisco Chronicle</div>

Anita Desai
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Books By Anita Desai (7 Books)

The Museum of Final Journeys

Translator Translated

The Artist of Disappearance

Diamond Dust

Clear Light of Day

The Zigzag Way

Fasting, Feasting

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© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Anita DesaiFollow this author

Books By Anita Desai (7 Books)

The Museum of Final Journeys

Translator Translated

The Artist of Disappearance

Diamond Dust

Clear Light of Day

The Zigzag Way

Fasting, Feasting

RELATED POSTS ABOUT ANITA DESAI

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More from

Corporate

© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Anita Desai
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