Anita Desai born as Anita Mazumdar on June 24, 1937. She is a celebrated Indian novelist and holds the prestigious title of Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her literary talent has been recognized with three Booker Prize nominations. Notably, she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her remarkable novel Fire on the Mountain. Desai's literary contributions also earned her the British Guardian Prize for The Village by the Sea in 1983. She serves as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, London, and sits on the advisory board of the Lalit Kala Akademi.