Desai creates unforgettable moments, both visual and emotional. DailyTelegraphBuried resentments, unexpected disappointments, new friendships, small acts of cruelty,journeys that take you back to where you started. With trademark compassion and tenderirony, Anita Desai s short stories give us familiar worlds made unfamiliar, to wonderfuleffect. An ageing couple is stranded in a stultifying Delhi summer by the visit of arogueish old Oxford friend, who trades on his charm; an American woman turns to hippiesliving in the Indian hills, homesick for the farmlands of Vermont; a dog terrorizes theneighbourhood but is cherished by his stern master; a Delhi girl of slender means fi nds anew kind of freedom with her young friends, in her barsati home; a peaceful game of hideand seek turns into a nightmare; a businessman sees his own death. For the fi rst time ever,in one masterly volume, here are Anita Desai s collected stories - from her very fi rst storyto her most recent one, published this year. Exquisite... stories whose beauty is in the detail, and their knowledge of the humanpsyche. They sparkle, not with the brash glitter of rhinestones, but with the intenser, morecomplex fi re of real diamonds. The Times