Click to play videoMumbai: Youngest ManBooker prize winner, Kiran Desai has not looked back ever since she wrote The Inheritance of Loss. India-born novelist Desai, who spent her childhood in India before moving to England, had to face fair amount of criticism for her writings.
The author has been in news not just for the critical acclaim that she received but also for her admission of the fact that she suffered racial bullying in Britain.
Desai spoke to CNN-IBN about Indian writing in the west, her future goals and life after winning the Booker Prize.
Hindol Sengupta: Everybody says Indian writing in English will go out of fashion but it never does. Does it?
Kiran Desai: No, in fact it seems to gets more and more popular each year, which is wonderful. I think we need more writers. For a billion people we need at least half a billion writers. Hope that the community grows.
Hindol Sengupta: One of the biggest criticism of your book has been that it voices only the Indian immigrant community. How do you respond to such criticism?
Kiran Desai: Actually I haven’t faced it much. The shiny side of immigration is being so celebrated that it gets huge amount of attention and gets every bit of advertising in both countries.
There is a huge desire that people have to believe that image. The darker side of ‘the life that the immigrants live’ is less focused upon because no body wants to look at that side. No body wants to look through the lines between the two communities—the Brits and the British Asians. One half is successful because the other half is not. One half lives the American dream because the other half can’t.
Hindol Sengupta: Arundhati Roy had once “after winning a Booker, one has to kill himself because there nothing more left to attain in literature and writing.” How much do you agree with that?
Kiran Desai: I hope to follow her example. But I love to write so much that I feel there is much to achieve yet. The past seven years have been delightful. I can’t wait to get back to writing.
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