Kiran desai is a true achiever in the real sense of the term. Kiran hit the headlines when she was awarded the Man Booker Prize for the year 2006 for her book, The Inheritance of Loss. The honour holds a place of esteem in the literary world. When Kiran was named as the winner she shot up to instant fame worldwide.
Born in India, Kiran shifted her base to England at the age of 14 before moving to the USA. She completed her schooling in Massachusetts. A young Kiran Desai was no stranger to the world of books. Her mother, Anita Desai is a noted writer and has also been short listed for the prestigious Man Booker prize three times. Therefore, to enter the field of writing was very easy for Kiran to explore. Kiran took up a course in Creative Writing at the Columbia University. At this time, she started with her first book Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard released in the year 1998. The book garnered vast acclaim from illustrious writers , Salman Rushdie being one of them. It fetched Desai the Betty Trask Award, a prize given by the Society of Authors for the best new novels by citizens of the Commonwealth Nations under the age of 35.
Kiran’s second book, The Inheritance Of Loss was published in the year 2006. It received rave reviews and unlike mother Anita who never succeeded in receiving the Booker Prize, Kiran won the highly desired literary honour, Man Booker Prize for the same year. She also won the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007. The book is largely based on the living between East and West, between past and present. It also talks about the imbalance that surfaces when an element of the West is brought into a country whose people are ignorant of Western culture and practices.