Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai’s is the author of two novels, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard which won the Betty Trask Prize in 1998, and The Inheritance of Loss, which won the Man Booker in 2006, making her the youngest woman ever to win this prize.  It was also awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award and was included in the Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and ALA Notable Books of the Year.  It was translated into over thirty-five languages.

Her essays have appeared in various publications, including the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Guardian, Gourmet, Travel and Leisure, Best American Travel Writing (edited by Simon Winchester), Eat, Memory, Great Writers at the Table (edited by Amanda Hesser), and Aids Sutra: Untold Stories from India, which was a project of the Gates Foundation.                                   

In 2009, she was presented with the Columbia University Medal for Excellence. In 2010, she was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University of Cairo, Egypt. In the spring of 2013, she will be writer-in-residence at Woodstock School in Mussoorie, India; and in the fall of 2013, a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.