The Artist of Disappearance

A jewel of a book from India's finest living woman writer.A triptych of beautifully crafted novellas make up Anita Desai's exquisite new book. Set in modern India, but where history still casts a long shadow, the stories move beyond the cities to places still haunted by the past, and to characters who are, each in their own way, masters of self-effacement.Rich and evocative, remarkable in their clarity and sensuous in their telling, these stories remind us of the extraordinary yet delicate power of this pre-eminent writer.

“Profoundly elegiac”

-- Margaret Drabble New Statesman
From a web of connections, Desai spins stories of history and loss that move the reader not with epiphanies, but through the sheer beauty of her storytelling Time Out
Elegantly paced and smartly crafted -- Fatima Bhutto Financial Times
Anita Desai writes exquisitely -- Allan Massie Scotsman
Bewitchingly beautiful The Times

Born and educated in India, Anita Desai is the author of many novels and short stories, and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times for her novels Clear Light of Day, In Custody and Fasting, Feasting. She is the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and the Royal Society of Literature.

'Anita Desai writes exquisitely' Scotsman Set in modern India, where history still casts a long shadow, The Artist of Disappearance gives us glimpses into three very different lives. A government official inspects a faded mansion of forgotten treasures and makes an extraordinary discovery, a middle-aged woman has a life-changing meeting with a former friend at a school reunion, and a man living hermit-like in the burnt-out shell of his family home retreats further and further from life. Rich and evocative, remarkable in their clarity and sensuous in their telling, these stories remind us of the extraordinary yet delicate power of this pre-eminent writer. 'Elegant, elegiac tales' Sunday Times 'From a web of connections, Desai spins stories of history and loss that move the reader not with epiphanies, but through the sheer beauty of her storytelling' Time Out 'Elegantly paced and smartly crafted' Fatima Bhutto, Financial Times

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