Fasting, Feasting
Anita Desai · b. 1937 · India
Why it matters
An unmarried Indian daughter's constrained life is set against her brother's alienated one studying in suburban America. Desai's Booker-shortlisted diptych on the different hungers (literal and otherwise) that discipline men and women.
At a glance
family sagapsychological novelcolonial & postcolonial
Difficulty 4/10slow pace228 pagesTwo clearly split, plainly narrated halves; difficulty is thematic rather than syntactic.
