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The Inheritance of Kiran Desai

"All day, the colours had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths." So begins Kiran Desai's elegant and meditative The Inheritance of Loss, set in the foot of the Himalayas and replete with descriptive passages of arresting beauty. Sad and funny, bleak and hopeful, measured and effusive, the novel knits varied moods and textures together as it tenderly explores the ideas of race, identity, exile, and nationalism against the backdrop of the Gorkha agitation in the Darjeeling area. The award of this year's prestigious Man Booker Prize for Kiran Desai's novel is a recognition that is wholly deserved. At one level, the Prize is a reflection on how much Desai has matured as a writer; her first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was relatively slight and received mixed reviews. At another, it is a sign that Indian writing in English — which received a new life and became aware of new possibilities after Salman Rushdie wrote Midnight's Children — is still in bloom. It is a heart-warming coincidence that Kiran Desai's wonderful novel was awarded the Booker on October 10, the birth centenary of the great R.K. Narayan. The two — one a legend and the other a novelist of tremendous promise — can hardly be compared. Interestingly though, as novelists they seem to share some common concerns, their works awash with a compassionate humanism, an eagerness to celebrate the small marvels and sensations of everyday life.

If Kiran's style does resemble another's, it is surely that of her famous mother, Anita Desai, who has been shortlisted for the Booker three times. It is a literary inheritance Kiran is proud to acknowledge. "To my mother I owe a debt so profound," she said with typical modesty after accepting the Prize, "It [the novel] was written in her company and in her wisdom and kindness." The Man Booker Prize is rarely, if ever, free from controversy. This year there have been questions over the rejection of a string of literary heavyweights. Among those who failed to make the shortlist were David Mitchell (Black Swan Green), Peter Carey (Theft), Nadine Gordimer (Get A Life) and Barry Unsworth (The Ruby In Her Navel). In the event, only one novelist who had been shortlisted before (Sarah Waters) found a place in this year's list of six. The panel's decision to reward "storytelling and historical truthfulness" may have imposed its own dynamic on the judging process. Literary prizes such as the Booker are bound to be influenced by personal tastes and an element of subjectivity is inevitable. What is important in the end is that a deserving novel wins. The Inheritance of Loss more than fulfills this criterion.

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