Anita Desai – författare

Anita Desais roman Dagens klara ljus (Clear Light of Day) i nyöversättning av Andreas Vesterlund. Boken nominerades till Man Booker-priset och tillhör Desais allra bästa. Det här är litteratur på högsta, på svindlande högsta nivå. Dagens klara ljus handlar om Tara och hennes syskon som har vuxit upp tillsammans i ett hus med stor trädgård i Old Delhi. Som vuxna brukar de med jämna mellanrum återses i barndomshemmet. Tara är numera gift med en ambassadör och van vid livet i stora världen. Även Raja reste iväg. Bim däremot har inte rest någonstans. Hon har stannat kvar hemma, hennes uppgift har varit att ta hand om sin autistiske bror Baba. Huset är sig likt, trädgården är sig lik. Ljuset. Dofterna. Grammofonen är densamma och 78-varvsskivorna som Baba så envist spelar - några få skivor som han spelar om och om igen. Alltid samma skrällande, smäktande toner. Det mesta är sig likt. Men samtidigt är allting under ständig förvandling... Få eller inga kan som Anita Desai fånga utrymmet mellan människorna, stämningen i samtalet, med vibrationerna i miljön, med själva ljusskenet i luften i kristallklar skärpa, som läsare är man där, precis där, man är där. Och få eller inga kan återge de stillsamma tankarna, de lågmälda personernas genuina funderingar, de ödmjuka personernas inre, personer som kan vara så diskreta och obemärkta i verkligheten blir så i högsta grad själsligt närvarande, så brännande tydliga i romanens universum, i författarens verklighet, i läsarens värld på boksidan. Anita Desai - född och uppvuxen i Indien - är författare till en rad böcker, varav flera utkommit på svenska. Hon räknas till en av världens riktigt stora och - på sitt unika stillsamma vis - tongivande författare. Hon har tilldelats otaliga internationella utmärkelser och brukar kallas "Indiens största författare som skriver på engelska". Eller som Daily Telegraph inplacerar henne - "en av de främsta engelskspråkiga författarna i modern tid". Enligt The Times är hon "Tolstojs arvtagare". Sedan 1980-talet bor hon i USA, för närvarande i Cold Spring strax norr om New York City.

Anita Desais flerfaldigt prisbelönta roman Baumgartners Bombay i nyöversättning av Andreas Vesterlund. En oerhört stark roman. Visserligen oerhört dyster, men ändå stark, ändå på något märkligt vis hoppfull, meningsfull, levande. Romanen visar hur kärleken och gemenskapen (ofta i förtvivlan) ständigt söker sina vägar, alltid kämpar för att segra, även när villkoren är näst intill hopplösa, näst intill omöjliga. Istället för att duka under sträcker Desais individer på sig och upptäcker ännu ett nytt klurigt sätt att ta sig vidare, trots allt. Är alla ingångar stängda upptäcks ändå en udda nisch att glida in i. Det finns alltid ytterligare en metod att klara sig. Är inte gemenskapen allom given får en annorlunda provisorisk nödgemenskap uppfinnas. Här är det mellankrigstidens, världskrigets och efterkrigstidens dramatiska historia som beskådas genom en snävt vinklad spegel hållen i en aldrig tidigare provad titthöjd. Det är det lilla perspektivet. Så här kan ett stråk av 1900-talets historia se ut, beskådad från ett helt annat håll än vi vant oss vid. Hugo Baumgartner, jude från Berlin, flyr från sitt hemland för att inte hamna i koncentrationsläger. Han tar sig till Indien där han ironiskt nog ändå förs till interneringsläger – för att han är tysk! Efter kriget kommer han ut i en kaotisk omvärld – det överbefolkade Bombay – där gatans grymma lagar råder. En god kamrat är Lotte, före detta nattklubbssångerska med tyskt förflutet. Hugo och Lotte är båda så trasiga att det sker en reparation redan av att de närmar sig varann. Men så kommer ännu en tysk in i bilden, Kurt, en ung blond hippie med en förödande uppdämd ilska inom sig... Anita Desai – född och uppvuxen i Indien – är författare till en rad böcker, varav flera utkommit på svenska. Hon räknas till en av världens riktigt stora och – på sitt unika stillsamma vis – tongivande författare. Hon har tilldelats otaliga internationella utmärkelser och brukar kallas "Indiens största författare som skriver på engelska". Eller som Daily Telegraph inplacerar henne – "en av de främsta engelskspråkiga författarna i modern tid". Enligt The Times är hon "Tolstojs arvtagare". Sedan 1980-talet bor hon i USA, för närvarande i Cold Spring strax norr om New York City. Bakhåll har tidigare utgivit följande av Desais böcker: Försvinnandekonstnären (2013), I säkert förvar (2014), Sick­sackvägen (2015) och Det brinner på berget (2015).

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.

Whole lives come into focus in this rich and diverse collection, as Desai trains her luminous spotlight on private universes from India to Canada and New England, from Cornwall to Mexico. Her protagonists set out on journeys and find themselves suddenly beyond the pale, or surprisingly back where they started from. Caught up in cycles of hope and disappointment, their lives are ruled by the seasons, or straitjacketed by the conventions of hospitality, friendship and family. In the title story, a beloved dog, black as Satan, brings nothing but disaster; in another, a business man away from home sees his own death; and elsewhere, old relationships stir up buried resentments, issues demand commitment - or escape. And in the final quiet masterpiece, one of Delhi's girls of slender means finds a kind of joy and freedom in a strange rooftop community.

Nanda Kaul is old. She has chosen to spend her last years high up in the mountains where she can arrange her thoughts into tranquility. But her solitude is broken when her fragile and secretive great-grand-daughter, Raka, comes to stay. It is an intrusion Nanda Kaul deeply resents, but this child has a capacity to change things. Through the long hot summer months hidden dependencies and old wounds are uncovered, until tragedy seems as inevitable as a forest fire on the hillsides surrounding the villa.

Touching and wonderfully funny, In Custody is woven around the yearnings and calamities of a small-town scholar in the north of India. An impoverished college lecturer, Deven, sees a way to escape from the meanness of his daily life when he is asked to interview India's greatest Urdu poet, Nur - a project that can only end in disaster.

A triptych of beautifully crafted novellas make up Anita Desai's exquisite new book. Set in modern India, but where history still casts a long shadow, the stories move beyond the cities to places still haunted by the past, and to characters who are, each in their own way, masters of self-effacement.Rich and evocative, remarkable in their clarity and sensuous in their telling, these stories remind us of the extraordinary yet delicate power of this pre-eminent writer.

Winner of the 1982 Guardian Award for children's fiction, The Village by the Sea is a survival story by the novelist Anita Desai.Set in a small fishing villlage near Bombay, Lila and Hari, aged 13 and 12, struggle to keep the family, including two young sisters, going when their mother is ill and their father usually the worse for drink. When Hari goes to Bombay to find work, Lila seems to be responsible for everything. Although the book paints a picture of extreme poverty, it demonstrates the strength of the family even in the most extreme circumstances and offers a powerful picture of another culture.

The Village by the Sea is a survival story by the novelist Anita Desai. Set in a small fishing villlage near Bombay, Lila and Hari, aged 13 and 12, struggle to keep the family, including two young sisters, going when their mother is ill and their father usually the worse for drink. When Hari goes to Bombay to find work, Lila seems to be responsible for everything. Although the book paints a picture of extreme poverty, it demonstrates the strength of the family even in the most extreme circumstances and offers a powerful picture of another culture.Reissued in 'A Puffin Book' series of Puffin modern classics, The Village by the Sea continues to engage young readers of 8+.

Finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction“The excellent strength [the novellas] share is a gracefulness and dreamlike sonority, reminiscent of writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and W.G. Sebald, wherein strange evolutions of solitary lives are the rule, and readers are held by the stately, hypnotic dignity of the voice that tells them.” – San Francisco ChronicleSet in modern India, these three novellas move beyond the cities to places still haunted by the past, and to characters who are, each in their own way, masters of self-effacement. An unnamed government official is called upon to inspect a faded mansion of forgotten treasures where he discovers a surprise "relic." A translator blurs the line between writer and translator, and in so doing risks unraveling her desires and achievements. In the title novella, a hermit hidden away in the woods with a secret is discovered by a film crew, which compels him to withdraw even further until he magically disappears . . . Rich and evocative, remarkable in their clarity and sensuous in their telling, these novellas remind us of the extraordinary yet delicate power of this pre-eminent writer. “Desai, at her best, offers enchanting, subtle, and deeply observed portraits of layered characters trapped between worlds.” – Daily Beast“Lingers in the memory the same way these landscapes and people of India prove impossible to forget.” – Boston Globe

'Anita Desai is a magnificent writer' - Salman Rushdie'Every new work from her is a gift' - Kamila Shamsie'Rosarita is transcendent . . . a testament to Desai’s enduring genius as a writer' - The Guardian'Tantalising' - Financial TimesFrom three times Booker-shortlisted author Anita Desai, Rosarita is a beautiful, haunting novel that explores memory, grief, and a young woman’s determination to forge her own path.A young student sits on a bench in a park in San Miguel, Mexico. Bonita is away from her home in India to learn Spanish. She is alone, somewhere she has no connection to. It is bliss.And then a woman approaches her. The woman claims to recognize Bonita because she is the spitting image of her mother, who made the same journey from India to Mexico as a young artist. No, says Bonita, my mother didn’t paint. She never travelled to Mexico. But this strange woman insists, and so Bonita follows her. Into a story where Bonita and her mother will move apart and come together, and where the past threatens to flood the present, or re-write it.**Praise for Anita Desai**Hypnotically beautiful and subtle’ - Financial Times‘Bewitchingly beautiful’ - The Times‘Profoundly elegiac’ - New Statesman

'Anita Desai is a magnificent writer' - Salman Rushdie'Every new work from her is a gift' - Kamila Shamsie'Rosarita is transcendent . . . a testament to Desai’s enduring genius as a writer' - The Guardian'Tantalising' - Financial TimesFrom three times Booker-shortlisted author Anita Desai, Rosarita is a beautiful, haunting novel that explores memory, grief, and a young woman’s determination to forge her own path.A young student sits on a bench in a park in San Miguel, Mexico. Bonita is away from her home in India to learn Spanish. She is alone, somewhere she has no connection to. It is bliss.And then a woman approaches her. The woman claims to recognize Bonita because she is the spitting image of her mother, who made the same journey from India to Mexico as a young artist. No, says Bonita, my mother didn’t paint. She never travelled to Mexico. But this strange woman insists, and so Bonita follows her. Into a story where Bonita and her mother will move apart and come together, and where the past threatens to flood the present, or re-write it.Praise for Anita Desai ‘Bewitchingly beautiful’ - The Times‘Profoundly elegiac’ - New Statesman

'Anita Desai is a magnificent writer' - Salman Rushdie'Every new work from her is a gift' - Kamila Shamsie'Rosarita is transcendent . . . a testament to Desai’s enduring genius as a writer' - The Guardian'Tantalising' - Financial TimesFrom three times Booker-shortlisted author Anita Desai, Rosarita is a beautiful, haunting novel that explores memory, grief, and a young woman’s determination to forge her own path.A young student sits on a bench in a park in San Miguel, Mexico. Bonita is away from her home in India to learn Spanish. She is alone, somewhere she has no connection to. It is bliss.And then a woman approaches her. The woman claims to recognize Bonita because she is the spitting image of her mother, who made the same journey from India to Mexico as a young artist. No, says Bonita, my mother didn’t paint. She never travelled to Mexico. But this strange woman insists, and so Bonita follows her. Into a story where Bonita and her mother will move apart and come together, and where the past threatens to flood the present, or re-write it.Praise for Anita Desai ‘Bewitchingly beautiful’ - The Times‘Profoundly elegiac’ - New Statesman

Eric is an uncertain, awkward young man, a would-be writer, and a traveller in spite of himself. Happy to follow his more confident girlfriend to Mexico, he is overwhelmed with sensory overload, but gradually seduced - by the strangeness, the colour, the mysteries of an older world. He finds himself on a curious quest for his own family in a 'ghost' mining town, now barely inhabited, where almost a hundred years earlier young Cornish miners worked the rich seams in the earth. On the Día de los Muertos, the feast day when the locals celebrate and remember their dead, the various strands of the novel come together hauntingly, bringing together past and present in a moment of quiet, powerful epiphany.

Like so many other young Westerners in the 1960s and 1970s, Matteo leaves home to search for spiritual enlightenment in the ashrams of India. He believes he finds it at the feet of 'the Mother', but down-to-earth Sophie, who accompanies him, does not find her inspiring so much as mysterious, and decides to trace the Mother's own story - from her travels with an Indian dance troupe in Paris, Venice and New York, to her search for divine love in India.

Vivid and alive, this powerful novella about one woman's belated rebellion against the powers that be is Anita Desai at her finest.Nanda Kaul retreats to a quiet house in the hills, determined to live out her days in solitude. But the arrival of her great-granddaughter disrupts the stillness she has carefully built, bringing with it memories she would rather leave behind. Fire on the Mountain is Anita Desai’s subtle, haunting novel of isolation and memory. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

A triptych of beautifully crafted novellas make up Anita Desai's exquisite new book. Set in modern India, but where history still casts a long shadow, the stories move beyond the cities to places still haunted by the past, and to characters who are, each in their own way, masters of self-effacement.Rich and evocative, remarkable in their clarity and sensuous in their telling, these stories remind us of the extraordinary yet delicate power of this pre-eminent writer.

A perceptive observation about the human race cleverly constructed and told with Desai's opulent vocabulary.

**A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BIG JUBILEE READ PICK**Discover the classic, Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel from one of India's finest ever writers.To the family living in the shabby, dusty house in Delhi, Tara's visit brings a sharp reminder of life outside tradition. For Bim, coping endlessly with their problems, there is a renewal of the old jealousies for, unlike her sister, she has failed to escape. Looking at both the cruelty and the beauty of family life and the harshness of India's modern history, Clear Light of Day brilliantly evokes the painful process of confronting and healing old wounds.'Clear Light of Day does what only the best novels can do; it totally submerges us.' Anne Tyler

Whole lives come into focus in this rich and diverse collection, as Desai trains her luminous spotlight on private universes from India to Canada and New England, from Cornwall to Mexico. Her protagonists set out on journeys and find themselves suddenly beyond the pale, or surprisingly back where they started from. Caught up in cycles of hope and disappointment, their lives are ruled by the seasons, or straitjacketed by the conventions of hospitality, friendship and family. In the title story, a beloved dog, black as Satan, brings nothing but disaster; in another, a business man away from home sees his own death; and elsewhere, old relationships stir up buried resentments, issues demand commitment - or escape. And in the final quiet masterpiece, one of Delhi's girls of slender means finds a kind of joy and freedom in a strange rooftop community.