Kiran Desai discussed her latest novel—nearly 20 years in the making—on CBS Saturday Morning.
Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny was published last week by Hogarth. It is the author’s first novel since the Booker Prize–winning The Inheritance of Loss, released in 2006. Her new novel follows two Indian young people who reconnect after their grandparents failed to make a match between them; it is a finalist for this year’s Kirkus Prize and Booker Prize.
CBS News correspondent Shanelle Kaul asked Desai what she thought about people calling her new novel “the modern-day Romeo and Juliet.”
“I think that came from an Indian newspaper, and of course that made me giggle,” Desai said. “I was influenced by love stories that I have loved, that I loved reading. I would say Anna Karenina, and I loved The Unbearable Lightness of Being by [Milan] Kundera. Snow Country, [Yasunari] Kawabata, Japanese author, influenced me a lot because it’s a very Asian love story.”
Kaul asked Desai why it took nearly 20 years to write the book.
“One, I was creating the material for not only this book, but I think for the future…keeping journals and diaries,” she said. “I followed the story, but then I disappeared into years of isolation, and it was just the pressure of creating this work of art.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
