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How to pronounce Kiran Desai: ki-run de-sigh (ki rhymes with the first two letters of king)
Kiran Desai is the bestselling author of two novels, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss, which won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Born in India, she came to the US when she was sixteen and now lives in New York City.
This bio was last updated on 09/08/2025. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
What was your process for writing this book--did you start with
the characters or with the plot?
I started with a very small idea, really. I'd read a story in the
Times of India and heard about a character from many people, a man who
was a very famous hermit in India who really did climb up a tree, who lived in a
tree for many, many years, until he died. He died last year, I believe. So I
began to wonder what it was about someone like this who would do something as
extreme as to spend his life in a tree. So it started really with that
character, and then the story built up around it.
When I started writing it I had no idea what the story would be; I had no idea
of the plot. It sort of gathered momentum and drew me along. It was an
incredibly messy process and I don't know if it was the smartest way to go about
it because this was my first book, so I had to teach myself how to write as I
was writing it, and I don't know if I went about it the right way but I
certainly had a lot of fun. It was very messy though--I had to throw out many
pages--about half the book I think I ended up editing. Once I was aware of all
the different ways to go, all the plot turns to take.
So how did you ...
Monica Ali is the daughter of English and Bangladeshi parents.
She came to England at the age of three, and her first home was Bolton in Greater Manchester. Ali later studied at Oxford University.
Her first novel, Brick ...
(more)
If you enjoyed:
The Inheritance of Loss
Try:
In the Kitchen
by Monica Ali
Tahmima Anam is the recipient of a Commonwealth Writers Prize, an O. Henry Prize, and has been named one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and was recently ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Inheritance of Loss
Try:
A Golden Age
by Tahmima Anam
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