Desai's Life and Works

About the lecture

In this lecture, we explore Anita Desai’s life and early fiction up to the publication of Fire on the Mountain in 1977. In particular, we focus on: (i) her early life in Mussoorie, India, her degree (English Literature at the University of Delhi), her marriage and her experience of motherhood; (ii) the breadth of her literary influences, including Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), R. K. Narayan (1906-2001), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) and Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941); (iii) some of the key preoccupations of Desai’s work, particularly the limitations of women’s lives in post-colonial India; (iv) Desai’s first novel – Cry, the Peacock (1963); (v) Desai’s fifth novel – Where Shall We Go This Summer? (1975); and (vi) Desai’s seventh novel – Fire on the Mountain (1977), including: the use of fire and heat imagery; the use of free indirect discourse; the figures of Nanda Kaul, Raka and Ila Das; and the ending of the novel.

About the lecturer

Dr Rachel Farebrother is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Swansea. Her primary research interests lie in African American literature and culture, especially the Harlem Renaissance. She has also written several articles on postcolonial literature, especially writers of the South Asian diaspora such as Agha Shahid Ali and Anita Desai.