Vol. 4, Issue 2, Part A (2022)

Anita Desai is one of the most prolific and prominent writers of Indian English fiction in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Three times she has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and in 1978 she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for her novel, Fire on the Mountain. With her sharp insight, Anita Desai observes with great precision the position and status of women in contemporary Indian society, for which she holds a unique place in the history of Indian English fiction. Her early novels examine the family problems that lead to the estrangement of women from their families. However, in her later novels, she incorporates stereotypes about Indian culture from the West. Political and social realities are less important to her than the interior landscape of the mind. Through her fiction, Bye- Bye Blackbird and Baumgartner's Bombay, she portrays diasporic sensibilities sensitively. The reader will experience life through Anita's simple, uncomplicated and vivid descriptions. This paper examines Anita Desai's contribution to Indian Writing in English novels.