A trio of novellas ruminates on memory, illusion, and expectation and is set in India of the recent past, where its protagonists embark on unexpected journeys that offer renewed hope and opportunity.
Assuming that literary beauty and social criticism are mutually reinforcing, Anita Desai (FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN, etc.) links the three novellas presented within THE ARTIST OF DISAPPERANCE through the titular themes. Each is about art--sometimes it is institutional, as in "The Museum of Final Journeys"; at other times it is secret and personal, as in the final piece, which shares the collection's title. Desai is considering art and the artist, however, in the midst of 21st-century India's radical social and economic upheavals, and this is where she locates the moments and processes of "disappearance." Throughout the three novellas, Desai chips away at the modern idea of art as something one possesses, as something that gains its value through the market and through ownership. With her characteristic touch, Desai spins out these big ideas through tales of sympathetic and flawed characters: a frustrated writer-turned-civil servant who stumbles upon a wealthy family's horded collections; a disillusioned English teacher who gets a chance to publish; and a solitary man living on a mountain who creates arrangements of leaves and stones for no one to see.
- Genre: Fiction + Literature Genres, Juvenile Fiction
- Subgenre: Literary, People + Places / Asia
- Publisher: Mariner Books
- Pages: 156
- Edition: Reprint
- Language: English
- Format: paperback
- Release Date: November 20, 2012
- Date Published: November 20, 2012
- Author: Anita Desai