Professor Anita Desai
Anita Desai was the first South Asian woman to join SHASS as faculty in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at MIT in 1993. She is currently the Emerita John F. Burchard Professor of Humanities.
Desai is an award-winning author of several books, including Clear Light of Day (1980) and In Custody (1984), both of which were finalists for the Booker Prize. She also received the Sahitya Akademi Award, one of the highest literary honors by the Government of India, for her novel, Fire on the Mountain (1977), along with the Padma Sri Award and the Taraknath Das Award for promotion of Indo-US relations.
Anita Desai Courtesy of the MIT Museum