Desai on Guardian Book Club 2009

Last year John Mullan (a former Booker judge himself, and a Professor of the University of London to boot) ran one of the Guardian's 'book club' sessions on Desai's novel. Check out what he said:

Week 1: Divisions. "A novel of shifting points of view, The Inheritance of Loss flits from one character to another, from one emotion or sense impression to the next, its narrative form acting out the sense of dislocation that is its theme. "

Week 2: the Importance of Food. "Food focuses cultural unease. Eating makes you feel you belong, and makes you know when you do not."

Week 3: Kiran Desai on writing The Inheritance of Loss. "As I wrote [the novel], I began the process of considering that one's place in the world might be merely incidental, just a matter of perspective. Perhaps the centre was not firm at all? And as I wrote I became aware of the rich novelistic moments that come from many stories overlapping, from this moral ambiguity, and from the utter uselessness of the flag. Even the past – home of sorts to all of us – wasn't fixed. History is only someone's story. I felt as if I were writing to displace myself, and to know that my story wasn't the only one – that there would always be other books on the shelf."

Week 4: Readers' reponses. "One reader wanted to know about the book's title. How late in the day had this come? Only at the very end, Desai replied, had she decided on "The Inheritance of Loss" – despite being counselled strongly against it. Had other titles had been rejected? Yes, but she was coy about these. Her father had told her to call it "The Loss of Inheritance": "at least everyone would understand what that means". But after eight years working on the book, she was entirely stubborn."