Baumgartner's Bombay - Couverture souple

"One of the best English novelists writing in English" (Independent)

"Hugo Baumgartner, the central character of Anita Desai's dazzling novel, is a wandering Jew all his life. From the agonising scenes of his childhood in pre-war Berlin, through his spell in business in Calcutta and then Bombay, he simply does not belong. Too dark for Hitler's society, he is too fair for India; he remains a firanghi, a foreigner, whatever he goes" (Daily Telegraph)

"Beautifully observed... Recovers a lost slice of history in its portrayal of a wounded survivor" (Observer)

"Cleverly constructed, and full of sharp perceptions about human nature under the skin, whatever the colour" (The Times)

"Anita Desai writes beautifully, employing an opulent vocabulary to great effect in her physical descriptions... The achievement of a superior writer" (Literary Review)

Born and educated in India, Anita Desai is the author of many novels and short stories, and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times for her novels Clear Light of Day, In Custody and Fasting, Feasting. She is the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and the Royal Society of Literature.