Kiran Desai (born 3 September 1971) is an Indian novelist. Her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss, won the Booker Prize in 2006, making her, at 35, the youngest woman to have won it at that time. She is the daughter of the novelist Anita Desai, who was shortlisted for the Booker three times. After a gap of nearly twenty years she published her third novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, in 2025; it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Kiran Desai |
| Born | 3 September 1971, New Delhi, India |
| Age | 55 |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Mother | Anita Desai |
| Education | Bennington College; Hollins University; Columbia University (M.F.A.) |
| Lives in | New York |
| Honours | Booker Prize (2006), National Book Critics Circle Award (2006) |
Early Life
Desai was born in New Delhi, the youngest of four children of Anita Desai and Ashvin Desai, a businessman. She spent her early years in Delhi, Pune and Mumbai and went to school in Kalimpong, in the Himalayan foothills, for a time. At 14 she left India with her mother, living for a year in England before settling in the United States. She studied at Bennington College in Vermont and took creative writing degrees at Hollins University and Columbia University.
Career
Desai’s first novel, a comic story about a young man in a small Indian town who climbs a guava tree and is taken for a holy man, was published in 1998. An extract had appeared in The New Yorker, and the book won the Betty Trask Award.
She spent more than seven years on her second novel. Set partly in Kalimpong during the Gorkhaland agitation of the 1980s and partly among illegal immigrants working in New York restaurant kitchens, it follows a retired judge, his orphaned granddaughter and his cook’s son. It won the Booker Prize in October 2006 and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Some residents of Kalimpong objected to its portrayal of the town and its Nepali-speaking people.
Desai’s third novel, nearly two decades in the writing, is a long love story about two young Indians moving between India and the United States. Published in September 2025, it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize that year.
Personal Life
Desai lives in New York and has kept her Indian citizenship. She has spoken of her close working relationship with her mother, to whom The Inheritance of Loss is dedicated.
Works
Awards and Honours
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Kiran Desai born?
Kiran Desai was born on 3 September 1971 in New Delhi, India and is 55 years old.
What is Kiran Desai’s occupation?
Occupation: Novelist.
What honours has Kiran Desai received?
Booker Prize (2006), National Book Critics Circle Award (2006).
Featured image: Kiran Desai speaks at an event, April 2007. Photo by Yaffa, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
