The Long Wait

NINETEEN YEARS IN THE MAKING, KIRAN DESAI'S THE LONELINESS OF SONIA AND SUNNY IS A SWEEPING, FUNNY AND DEEPLY FELT PORTRAIT OF LOVE AND ISOLATION IN A GLOBALISED WORLD

- Bhavya Dore

Kiran Desai scoffs at the word anticipation.

"It was completely quiet," she says, laughing, of the 19-year wait for her new novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. "Maybe some friends would have said, 'Are you ever going to finish?'. But no, I didn't feel anticipation knocking at my door."

Desai is down-to-earth and disarming in a video call from her home in New York. It's her third novel and first since The Inheritance of Loss, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2006. "It was a wonderful thing," she says, of the win. "It really allowed me to think of myself as a writer and to give myself the time. This time taken perhaps came from that confidence that I now have the time to work."

Desai spent years writing and rewriting Loneliness..., excising large chunks and sieving out only the parts that had "sparks of life". Her mother Anita Desai, a three-time Booker Prize nominee and Desai's literary confidante, saw a 1,000-page draft ("still a big mess") once it was down from 5,000 pages, often providing encouragement and critique.