Originally hailing from Delhi and presently living in Cambridge, MA, Desai here demonstrates why she has been chosen as a Booker Prize finalist not once but three times. Desai continues her remarkable career with another short story collection. Whether living in a small town in Mexico or on a Delhi rooftop, her array of characters traverse cultural and class boundaries like seasoned veterans. Desai's greatest strength is her accurate depiction of the postcolonial reality of Indian life for Indians, especially evident in two of the nine stories, "The Rooftop Dwellers" and "Winterscape," both of which portray Indian women negotiating nontraditional roles. In "Winterscape," two sisters who have shared mothering responsibilites for the same child visit their Americanized son in the United States. In "The Rooftop Dwellers," Monya, a member of Dehli's rooftop community, confronts outmoded notions about single working women. Desai's exquisite descriptions of settings, her perceptive insights into human nature, and her bountiful humor make this book a valuable addition to a multitude of library collections.

Anita Mazumdar Desai (born June 24, 1937) is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been shortlisted for the Booker prize three times. Her daughter, the author Kiran Desai, won the 2006 Booker prize.