ABOUT THE BOOK

Fasting, Feasting is a wonderful novel of two parts, running from the heart of a close-knit Indian household, with its restrictions and prejudices, its noisy warmth and sensual appreciation of food, to the cool centre of an American family. Uma, the plain spinster daughter of the Indian family, is trapped at home, smothered by her overbearing parents and their traditions, unlike her ambitious younger sister Aruna, who brings off a good marriage, and brother Arun, the disappointing son and heir who is studying in America. Across the world in Massachusetts, life is bewildering for Arun in the alien culture of freedom, freezers and paradoxically self-denying self-indulgence.

‘Desai has a wicked, subtle humour…
and her characters are beautifully
described… Her writing is polished and
 mature, with a wit she cleverly underplays’
Daily Telegraph

‘If we could have chosen a runner-up,
we would undoubtedly have given the
 runner-up award to Anita Desai and
Fasting, Feasting, a most beautiful novel’
Gerald Kaufman, Chairman of the Booker Prize 1999

‘Fasting, Feasting is a hypnotically
readable story, in language which has
the precision of poetry… an ambitious
, successful and disturbing novel’
The Times

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anita Desai was born and educated in India. Her distinguished literary career spans more than three decades. She has had three of her novels shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Clear Light of Day, In Custody and Fasting, Feasting, and has won numerous awards for her fiction. Her published works include several novels, as well as children’s books and short stories, most recently the collection, Diamond Dust. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London and of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, as well as a Fellow of Girton College at the University of Cambridge. She teaches in the Writing Program at M.I.T. In Custody was filmed by Merchant Ivory Productions.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

My Writing Day – Anita Desai, Irish Times June 1999

"It’s always difficult to make a beginning, to start writing. For some reason, it is hard, no matter how many books there are behind you. I have to edge myself into it sideways by writing a few letters or notes in my diary, or a few bits and pieces, and then taking the writing almost by surprise. It’s difficult to get started because perhaps there is a fear that one won’t get it right. That can be quite paralysing: that one won’t get what one set out to do.

I try to stay at my desk for the whole morning, even if I’m only fiddling with pens and paper. Sometimes all I do is simply scratch out what I did the day before. I never show anything to anyone until the work is completed. It generally takes me two to three years to write a book.

I’m used to always working in the mornings – as early as possible, before I attend to anything else in the day because when I started writing, it was always when the children were at school. I always halted work in the school holidays, so I found myself trying to have drafts finished by then: it was a natural deadline to work towards.

At the final stages, the work becomes so intense that at the end I am simply relieved and exhausted but also experience a tremendous let-down. I begin to miss the work so much that there is nothing to celebrate. Also an anxiety sets in about whether one will ever write again."

STARTING POINTS FOR YOUR DISCUSSION

1. Fasting, Feasting, a novel built around the contrasts between Indian and American family life, seems to present a negative view of both modern societies. How do you respond to this critical portrayal?
   
   
2. The novel is comprised of two self-contained narratives. What, if anything, does this structure add to the enjoyment of the novel? Do you think it works as a narrative device?
   
   
3. Food is a central theme of this novel, why is this and what does the food represent? Discuss how Desai uses food to comment on cultural identity.
   
   
4. In both sections of the book, it is ultimately the women who suffer. What is Desai saying about cultural misconceptions of happiness and gender?
   
   
5. 'Contemporary Indian fiction writers are among the finest in the world' Irish Times. What are the defining characteristics of this school of Indian writing, as purveyed by writers such as Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth? Does Desai depart from this school of Indian writing?
   
   
6. During Arun's stay with the Patton family, their perceptions of each other are consistently proven to be false. Do you think that by the end of the novel either Mrs Patton or Arun reach a greater/truer understanding of the other's culture?

OTHER BOOKS BY ANITA DESAI

NOVELS
Journey To Ithica
In Custody
Fire On the Mountain
Games at Twilight
Baumgartner Bombay
Clear Light of Day

SHORT STORIES
Diamond Dust

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

The God of Small Things ~ Arundhati Roy
Midnight's Children ~ Salman Rushdie
Fine Balance ~ Rohinton Mistry
Jasmine ~ Bharati Mukherjee
Looking Through Glass ~ Makul Kesavan
Disgrace ~ J M Coetzee
The Love of a Good Woman ~ Alice Munro

ADDITIONAL ONLINE RESOURCES

Read an extract.