Anita Desai is one of India's foremost writers. She has written numerous works of fiction, including Clear Light of Day (1980),

In Custody (1984), and Fasting, Feasting (1999)-all shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize-as well as Baumgartner's Bombay (1988) and The Zigzag Way (2004).

 In Custody was made into a film by Merchant-Ivory productions, starring Shashi Kapoor and Om Pura. Her most recent work is The Artist of Disappearance (2011).

A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London, the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York,

Gorton College and Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge, and most recently Sahitya Akademie in India,

Anita Desai has also been a Professor of Writing at MIT and has frequently been honored with awards, among them the Alberto Moravia Prize for Literature and the Padma Shri.

Born in Mussoorie to a German mother and a Bengali father, she was educated in Delhi, and currently divides her time between USA and Mexico.