KIRAN DESAI- Winner of The Man Booker 2006!

Every year the 'Man BookerAward' is awarded to the best full length English language novel from an author in the commonwealth. Previous winners from India include Salman Rushdie for 'Midnight's Children' , Arundhati Roy for 'God of Small Things', V.S. Naipaul for 'In a Free State', and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala for 'Heat and Dust'. Joining the illustrious company now is the 2006 Man Booker winner Kiran Desai for her novel 'The Inheritance of Loss'. Kiran Desai is the daughter of the three time Booker shortlisted author Anita Desai. So Kiran, for all the controversy that may or may not arise, can be satisfied for having brought home the honour that her mother had once been denied.

Kiran Desai at 35 also became the youngest woman ever to win the Man Booker prize. The previous youngest woman winner had been fellow Indian Arundhati Roy who won the prize in 1997 when just a month short of her 36th birthday… The youngest ever winner was Ben Okri who landed the Booker in 1991 at the age of 32.

Kiran Desai, turned novelist with her debut novel 'Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard' that was published in 1998. It took seven more years to get her secon instalment out into the open. Having won the 50000 pound (42 lakh Rupees) award, and having given the sales of her present, past and future books a huge boost, the wait would seem worth it after all.

Below is a short review of 'The Inheritance of Loss posted' by Amitava Kumar, ,that though brief gives a good insight into the novel.

The Inheritance of Loss is an ambitious work, ambitious not so much in matters of form, where it still echoes other Indian writers, but in its social canvas. The novel is set in a small hill-town in India of the mid-eighties—but the story is not confined by a narrow sense of time or place. It stands witness to national breakdown as well as the national diaspora; the past and its terrors enjoy as much attention as the chaotic present. This is a story, wittily told, of India’s many classes, their neuroses, their struggles, and the tenuous hopes of those who do not have stable income or identities. The reviews have not remarked on the ways in which the book repeats other novels in its plot-lines or themes, most notably The God of Small Things, the novel which won Arundhati Roy the same prize. In my opinion, the book sets its sights low, detailing a variety of oppressions. Nevertheless, it is not a multicultural text-book; instead, it is marked by invention and joy. In fact, the Inheritance of Loss can be put among the handful of representations of our moment—call it globalization, postmodernity, or contemporary conditions—from the viewpoint of its victims.

It is the fact that I havent yet read the booker 2006 winning novel, that my own review does'nt occupy the post above. But an original review is on its way in a short time. Untill then lets celebrate the return of the Booker to India.