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Diamond Dust & Other Stories
Diamond Dust & Other Stories
Oct 3, 2024 5:33 PM

Author:Anita Desai

Diamond Dust & Other Stories

Whole lives come into focus in this rich and diverse collection, as Desai trains her luminous spotlight on private universes from India to Canada and New England, from Cornwall to Mexico. Her protagonists set out on journeys and find themselves suddenly beyond the pale, or surprisingly back where they started from. Caught up in cycles of hope and disappointment, their lives are ruled by the seasons, or straitjacketed by the conventions of hospitality, friendship and family. In the title story, a beloved dog, black as Satan, brings nothing but disaster; in another, a business man away from home sees his own death; and elsewhere, old relationships stir up buried resentments, issues demand commitment - or escape. And in the final quiet masterpiece, one of Delhi's girls of slender means finds a kind of joy and freedom in a strange rooftop community.

Reviews

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

—— The Times

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.

—— Irish Times

Unsentimental, dazzling, funny and achingly sad.

—— Literary Review

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

—— The Spectator

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

—— Alison Lurie

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

—— Tatler

Darien Dogs is a bullishly confident and vivacious collection

—— Time Out

Beautifully paced and pitched

—— Independent

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

—— Independent

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

—— Spectator

Accomplished ... confident

—— Sunday Times

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

—— Metro
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