Writer Kiran Desai: How Long Before You Are Allowed to Belong

”It took me 20 years to write this book.” We spoke with Indian writer Kiran Desai about her novel The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, the Indian tradition of oral storytelling, growing up with British novels, and living between cultures. ”I write about migration and immigrant stories and stories that are naturally those of movement, of dissolving an old, deep-rooted sense of home. What it is to follow a character whose sense of self is changing all the time and who may be making a completely unknowable creature out of herself. She may be looking for love and a sense of home. And it's a deep-rooted homelessness.” ”There’s something that just drives me straight to my desk. I get up, and I go to my desk, and I get up, and I go to my desk. And through the process of writing this book, I began to see myself as one of the characters in The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. I began to see myself like an ant or an earthworm or a bee, just doing my work, transposing a tiny bit of real life into artistic life.” ”I think what writers really want to do is to vanish into their work. to be part of it so deeply that your life doesn't exist separately from your work. And it is true that it takes a sacrifice to do that, which is the sacrifice of real life. You don't get to live a real life.” Kiran Desai (b. 1971 in Chandigarh, India) was educated in India, England, and the United States, completing an MFA at Columbia University in 1999. Her first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, received the 1998 Betty Trask Award for being one of the best new novels by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations under the age of 35. In her 2006 novel, The Inheritance of Loss, Desai recreated busy, intersecting tales of immigrants meeting for the first time in the basement kitchens of New York, contrasting their stories with the landscapes left behind. The Inheritance of Loss won the Man Booker Prize in 2006 and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was translated into over 40 languages. Her third novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2025. Desai, who currently lives in New York, is the recipient of many honors. In 2009, she was presented with the Columbia University Medal for Excellence. In 2013-14, she received the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. In 2015, The Economic Times listed her among the 20 most influential global Indian women. Kiran Desai was interviewed by Gyrith Ravn during the annual Louisiana Literature Festival in August 2026. Camera: Simon Weyhe Edited by: Nanna Rebekka Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026 Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond. Subscribe to our channel for more videos on literature:    / thelouisianachannel   SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER: https://channel.louisiana.dk/newsletter FOLLOW US HERE: Website: http://channel.louisiana.dk Instagram:   / louisianachannel   Facebook:   / louisianachannel