National Book Awards Finalists/Man Booker Winners Announced

At her first attempt Desai, 35, not only became the youngest woman to win but achieved a victory which repeatedly eluded her mother. The esteemed Indian novelist Anita Desai - to whom The Inheritance of Loss is dedicated - has been shortlisted three times for the Man Booker.

Emperor_Norton said:
*waves giant #1 foam finger in the air*

Go Team Danielewski! Whoooo!

PointBlank said:

I'd bet on Powers.

You wrote most of The Echo Maker on a tablet PC running voice recognition software. How did you arrive at that method of composition?

I've always wanted the freedom to be completely disembodied when I'm writing, to feel as if I'm in a pure compositional state. Typing is a highly unnatural activity, and your writing style ends up reflecting the cognitive shackles. When I started to use the tablet, things that are extremely difficult to do on a word processor opened up to me. I could also make drawings to see what a character looked like, and these sketches would be integrated into my research. Part of the mystery of The Echo Maker hinges upon what happened on a certain stretch of road on the night of the accident. I figured that out visually by drawing the scene over and over and seeing how all the elements moved in relationship to one another.