Exquisite...these stories sparkle with the fire of real diamonds.

Contemporary Indian fiction writers are among the finest in the world, and Desai at her best, as she is throughout this collection, has deservedly won her place alongside them.

Unsentimental, dazzling, funny and achingly sad.

All her stories are full of a confidence in human nature that is a rarity and a pleasure to encounter.

Anita Desai is one of the most brilliant and subtle writers ever to have described the meeting of eastern and western culture.

Spine-chilling twists and turns - Graham Greene eat your heart out

Darien Dogs is a bullishly confident and vivacious collection

Beautifully paced and pitched

These stories are shored up with sentences and paragraphs that demand immediate re-reading for their cleverness and warmth…This party is well worth attending

This collection shows a writer quietly growing in style, perception and grace. She conveys to the reader that rare ability to see completely into someone else’s head

Accomplished ... confident

The ghost of Katherine Mansfield hovers lightly over these deceptively delicate snapshots which zero in on the much maligned territory of the domestic and make it new and vital again