After a lifetime as the dutiful wife of a university vice-chancellor and mother of many children, Nanda Kaul has retreated to Carignano, an isolated house on a ridge in Kasauli. She wants nothing more than to be left alone with the pines and the view, and she resents any letter or visitor that might pull her back into obligation.
Then her great-granddaughter Raka is sent to recover from typhoid and a troubled home. To Nanda's surprise, the child wants no attention at all and spends her days roaming ravines and burnt hillsides. Nanda finds herself trying to win the girl over with invented stories, while Ila Das, a childhood friend reduced to poverty, brings news of the dangers of the world below.
Short and intense, the novel is a study of solitude, female lives and the pretences people build to survive them. It won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize and the Sahitya Akademi Award, and its quiet build-up gives way to a powerful, unsettling conclusion best discovered without warning.
Book details
| Author | Anita Desai |
|---|---|
| First published | 1977 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 145 |
| Setting | Carignano, a house in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, 1970s |
| Awards | Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize 1978, Sahitya Akademi Award 1978 |
Themes
- Solitude
- Women's lives
- Old age and childhood
- Illusion
- Loneliness
Who should read it
Readers who enjoy short, psychologically intense novels about women and solitude.