Anita Desai was born and educated in India. Her published works include novels, children's books and short stories. Clear Light of Day (1980), In Custody (1984) and Fasting Feasting (1999) were all shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and The Village by the Sea won the Guardian Award for Children's Fiction in 1982. Anita Desai is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London, of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and of Girton College at the University of Cambridge. She teaches in the Writing Program at M.I.T and divides her time between India, Boston, Massachusetts and Cambridge, England. In Custody was recently filmed by Merchant Ivory Productions.