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Anita Desai Biography

Anita Desai (born 24 June 1937) is an Indian novelist and the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a writer she has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times; she received a Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain, from the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters; she won the British Guardian Prize for The Village by the Sea.

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Anita Desai Quotes

Do you know anyone who would - secretly, sincerely, in his innermost self - really prefer to return to childhood?

Childhood, Innermost, Know, Return, Self

When I am writing, I focus one hundred percent on my writing. Then, by the time I'm half way through the book, I'm already thinking about the ending.

Book, Focus, Hundred, Thinking, Writing

My style of writing is to allow the story to unfold on its own. I try not to structure my work too rigidly.

Rigidly, Story, Style, Trying, Writing

Someone who wants to write should make an effort to write a little something every day. Writing in this sense is the same as athletes who practice a sport every day to keep their skills honed.

Athlete, Day, Practice, Same, Sports, Writing

What a sense of possession, of confidence, it gave one to have pockets, to shove one's fists into them, as if in simply owning pockets one owned riches, owned independence.

Fists, Gave, Independence, Pockets, Possession, Sense

When I was very young, I used to share much of what I wrote with my family, but as I got older and more self-conscious, it became a much more private process.

Conscious, Family, My Family, Private, Self, Share

. . . the moon that hung over the garden like some great priceless pearl, flawed and blemished with grey shadowy ridges as only a very great beauty can risk being.

Garden, Hung, Moon, Priceless, Risk

I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.

Character, Connections, Emerges, Plot, Story, Trying

Usually a feeling of disappointment follows the book, because what I hoped to write is not what I actually accomplished. However, it becomes a motivation to write the next book.

Becomes, Book, Disappointment, Hoped, Motivational

India is a curious place that still preserves the past, religions, and its history. No matter how modern India becomes, it is still very much an old country.

Country, History, India, Modern India, Past

People think that because I write about India I must be trying to portray India in a way.

India, People, Thinking, Way, Write, Writing

I aim to tell the truth about any subject, not a romance or fantasy, not avoid the truth.

Avoid, Fantasy, Romance, Telling The Truth, Truth

Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.

Great Travel, Part, Somehow, Travel, Traveler, Wherever

The wheel turns and turns and turns: it never stops and stands still.

Stands, Stills, Stops, Turns, Wheel, Wheels

Ever since I could first write I have been doing so. When I was taught how to write and read at school, I made up my mind that this was what I love to do best and this was the world I was going to occupy.

Love, Mind, School, World, Write, Writing

The book begins and ends with the visits to give the impression of a tunnel into their ancestors and family history. I believe in going backwards into the past - I felt I was digging a tunnel back to the past.

Ancestors, Believe, Book, Past, Tunnel

Isn't it strange how life won't flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood?

Flood, Flow, Forwards, Locks, Moving, Rivers