Losing gave me freedom: Kiran Desai on missing out on second Booker Prize

There is a real upside to loss says celebrated author Kiran Desai who knows only too well what a win can take out of a person and would like to focus on her mother the renowned Anita DesaiKiran Desai was only 35 when she won the Booker for her 2006 novel The Inheritance of Loss the youngest woman author to do so at the time She came close to it again last November when The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny was shortlisted for the coveted prize That second Booker didnt happen But there are no regretsIve learned over time that of course its an honour to win but there is a real upside to loss I remember telling my mother I dont want to win because I knew how much it takes out of you to have everyones eyes on you My mother shes 88 89 now I want to focus on her Shes my priority Desai told PTI during her recent visit to IndiaAnd also when there are no eyes on you as I was telling my editor you can go back to scratching in the dirt like a chicken in the yard which is what writing is all about Youre alone youre not selfconscious and youre really free to work So yes theres an upside to loss she addedDesai recalls how overwhelming the first Booker win wasThe New Yorkbased author now 54 chuckles at the memory noting that she barely grew outside the world of her book thenHer mother Anita Desai who has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize for Clear Light of Day 1980 In Custody 1984 and Fasting Feasting 1999 knows too well about the weight of recognitionHer words of wisdom after the closecall this time Kiran Desai lost out to HungarianBritish author David Szalay who won the Booker 2025 for his book Flesh landed perfectly for the daughterShe told me Now youre free to experiment with your life and your work Desai recalledThats exactly what I felt it gave me freedomHer latest work at nearly 700 pages spans India Mexico and the United States tracing the intertwined lives of Sonia a literature student wrestling with heartbreak and creative longing and Sunny a young journalist navigating cultural expectations and lonelinessTheir paths eventually cross in India sparking a deep complex connection that unfolds against themes of family identity and the global ache for connection and meaningDesai who like her mother writes daily and finds any interruption in her routine upsetting said she felt an enormous sense of relief after finally finishing The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny which took nearly two decades to completeThe sigh of relief was immense because of course after 20 years it is far too long If I had waited another 20 years I would be 74 And if I want to write a few more books theres an urgency to finish them now she saidNotwithstanding the anxiety over the passage of time the joy of creation remained the heart of the process Desai saidI was very happy working on this book And I still think all the time I could have done this differently that could have been better But thats part of writing she added After living with these characters for so long the questions linger do they ever truly recede or do they quietly accompany her as she turns to new storiesAs Desai sees it the characters never fully disappear Her first novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard was published in 1998They have a space for themselves They kind of change you you become the characters you write So in a way they stay with you because you feel like after all of this time that they have kind of shaped you as well as a writer Like so much exploring of these different people that they become you she explainedBased in New York for over two decades Desai left India with her mother at 14 She is conscious that The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny may be her last indepth engagement with a country she has visited less often since her fathers death in 2008 During the process of writing this book my father was still alive I was keeping notes I was going home India And I knew I would lose the ability to write about India So I wanted to write one last book in this way she saidThe Delhiborn author often returns to the question of identity that also runs through the novelShe points to the protagonist Sunny who returns to India and wonders if India is more familiar to him than he is to himselfIts a sentiment Kiran recognises too in the pull of a place the body remembers even as time and distance render her a strangerI sometimes feel that way I come back and I am in the landscape I grew up in so somehow my body remembers even though I am a stranger now there is something still profoundly familiar Desai saidThe sense of being insideroutsider persists in India as much as in the US where the current political dispensation has unsettled the little bit sense of belonging she had of the placeThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without 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