SOURCE: "Themes and Variations in the Novels and Short Stories of Anita Desai," in Journal of Literature and Aesthetics, Vol. 2, Nos. 2-3, April-July, 1982, pp. 74-9.

In the essay below, Rao focuses on the short story collection Games at Twilight to examine Desai's "obsessive concern with the 'existential' problems of her characters and the continuity of theme which characterizes her work."

Anita Desai is a unique figure in the world of Indo-Anglian writing. She is a conscious artist who is aware of her strength and limitations as a writer. In her novels and short stories Anita Desai has repeatedly gone back to the same themes and situations and has employed the same kind of technique for the presentation of her favourite themes. Each new work of hers affords the reader pleasure of the familiar and the satisfaction of having one's expectations fulfilled time and again in the same way...