Set in contemporary Bombay and other cities, these stories reflect the kaleidoscope of urban life - evoking the colour, sounds and white-hot heat of the city. Warm, perceptive, humorous and touched with sadness, Anita Desai’s stories are peopled with intensely individual characters - the man spiritually transformed by the surface texture of a melon; the American wife who, homesick for the verdant farmlands of Vermont, turns to the hippies in the Indian hills; the painter living in a slum who fills his canvasses with flowers, birds and landscapes he has never seen.

A Study Guide for Anita Desai's "A Devoted Son," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

A Study Guide for Anita Desai's "Clear Light of Day," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 1999 BOOKER PRIZE Uma, the plain, spinster daughter of a close-knit Indian family, is trapped at home, smothered by her overbearing parents and their traditions, unlike her ambitious younger sister Aruna, who brings off a 'good' marriage, and brother Arun, the disappointing son and heir who is studying in America. Across the world in Massachusetts, life with the Patton family is bewildering for Arun in the alien culture of freedom, freezers and paradoxically self-denying self-indulgence.

Welcome to the surreal world of Boom, where civil servants wake the dead, corpses are terrified of cremation, old women are besieged in their homes, and Ah Bengs still dream of being Superman. Boom tells the story of an elderly woman and her property agent son in Singapore, who are struggling over the potential en bloc sale of their home. Their destinies become interwoven with that of an idealistic civil servant, Jeremiah, who is facing the greatest challenge of his career—persuading a reluctant corpse to yield its memories. Boom is a quirky yet poignant tale about the relocation of both dead and living, and how personal stories get left behind in the inexorable march of progress. Written by economist-turned-playwright Jean Tay, Boom was conceptualised at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2007, and developed and staged by the Singapore Repertory Theatre in September 2008. It was nominated for Best Original Script for The Straits Times’ Life!Theatre Awards in 2009 and is now an ‘O’- and ‘N’-Level Literature text in Singapore schools.

Gone are the days when Nanda Kaul watched over her family and played the part of Vice-Chancellor’s wife. Leaving her children behind in the real world, the busier world, she has chosen to spend her last years alone in the mountains in Kasauli, in a secluded bungalow called Carignano. Until one summer her great-granddaughter Raka is dispatched to Kasauli – and everything changes. Nanda is at first dismayed at this break in her preciously acquired solitude. Fiercely taciturn, Raka is, like her, quite untamed. The girl prefers the company of apricot trees and animals to her great-grandmother’s, and spends her afternoons rambling over the mountainside. But the two are more alike than they know. Throughout the hot, long summer, Nanda’s old, hidden dependencies and wounds come to the surface, ending, inevitably, in tragedy. Marvellous yet restrained, Fire on the Mountain speaks of the past and its unshakable hold over the present.

Anita Desai S Work Represents A Unique Blending Of The Indian And The Western. Her Novels Catch The Bewilderment Of The Individual Psyche Confronted With The Overbearing Socio-Cultural Environment And The Ever-Beckoning Modern Promise Of Self-Gratification And Self-Fulfilment. In The Face Of This Dual Onslaught, Her Protagonists, Male Or Female Maya, Sita, Monisha And Amla; Sarah, Nanda And Raka; Bim And Tara; Devan, Baumgartner Are Seen Poised Rentalizingly At Different Junctures Of The Philosophic Spectrum.Applying Sociological, Psychoanalytic, Structural And Other Approaches Of Formal Textual Analysis, The Essays In The Present Anthology Take A Fresh Look At Established Works, Revealing Aspects Of Study Hitherto Unexplored, Offer Critically Insightful Probes Into Individual Novels And Explore The Deployment Of Images, Symbols And Other Poetic Devices, Besides Diverse Narrative Strategies.An Indispensable Source-Book For Students, Researchers And Teachers Of Indian English And Commonwealth Literature In General And Fiction And Anita Desai In Particular.An Insightful Companion For Research In Sociology And Women-Studies.