A Happy Ending at Last

Anita Desai knows from cruel experience about the horrors of competing for big literary awards. Three times the renowned Indian novelist has been a finalist for the MAN Booker Prize for fiction, and three times she's failed to win it. But last week, says Desai, the stress was worse than everbecause this time, the finalist was her daughter Kiran. Roused by her sister-in-law at 5 a.m. on Oct. 11, Anita turned on the television to see that Kiran, at age 35, had become the youngest woman ever to win the Booker. "I wanted it so much for her," says Anita, speaking...