Anita Desai, in a succession of fine novels (two/three of which have been short listed for the Booker prize) and short story collections written over almost 40 years, was one of the first writers from the sub-continent to introduce Western readers to post-Independence India. In Diamond Dust, her latest collection of stories, she expands her geographical and cultural terrain and, with her customary skill and an often sly but tender wit, homes in on the little and larger pinpricks of daily life. In "Winterscape", a quietly haunting tale, two Punjabi village women try to make sense of the chilly world inside and outside a snowy Toronto window; in several other stories it is summer heat that becomes the catalyst. An ageing couple are stuck in a stultifying Delhi by the visit of an old Oxford friend, who trades on his charm; the family in "Five Hours to Simla", caught up in a road-rage incident, are distracted by a perambulating universe of hawkers, beggars and hungry curs; a scorcher of an evening on the Cornish coast causes a young couple nothing but misery; young Polly at summer camp in Massachusetts, has fallen under the thrall of art in the form of her art teacher, until her Miss Jean Brodie enthusiasm takes on the disturbing shape of Miss Mabel Dodd. Desai's wonderfully deft characterisation and telling dialogue, and the visual precision of her small-scale worlds--little absurdities of manner and mood, small acts of cruelty, intentionally crossed lines, the unheard of cries for attention--are what give her work such pleasure and humane significance. If occasionally the plot lines become too strained, this weakness is more than compensated for by the sheer affectionate regard in which she defines the frailties and expectations of her characters. --Ruth Petrie