Anita Desai has written at least part of most days since she was seven, usually in the hours when the house is quiet: early in the day, when others have gone out, or at night, when they are asleep. She said so in a July 6, 2024 interview with Sayari Debnath for Scroll. The line most often quoted as a headline, “‘I have spent at least a part of my day writing since the age of seven’,” is a shortened version of her full answer, and the fuller wording is worth keeping intact.
The full quotation
When Debnath asked about her daily routine, Desai answered:
- “I have spent at least a part of my day at my desk, writing, ever since the age of seven, usually at those times of the day when others are out, or sometimes at night when they are asleep.”
- “Silence and solitude are essential.”
The phrase “at my desk” is the part the headline drops, and it matters. Desai is describing a fixed physical place and a repeated habit, not a vague sense of always thinking about books. The claim covers the whole of her working life as she described it, which spans more than six decades since her first novel, Cry, the Peacock.
Why she writes in quiet hours
Desai does not present the early or late timing as a productivity trick. She presents it as a condition of the work: the writing happens when no one else needs her, and the solitude is what makes it possible. Her second sentence on the subject, “Silence and solitude are essential,” is the closest she comes to a rule, and it is a rule about environment rather than output.
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For readers who write or want to write, the useful reading is narrow. She does not claim that quiet produces better sentences. She says that she has organised her life around protecting the time, and that the protection has been the constant, not any single technique.
Writing by hand and resisting computers
Debnath asked how her process has changed from the era of pen and typewriter to computers. Desai said she is “totally resistant to computers,” that she still writes by hand, and that she depends on other people, often her daughter, the novelist Kiran Desai, for help with the machines. The interview question itself frames the change as beginning in 1963, the year Cry, the Peacock was published.
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The detail is less a statement about technology than about a practical dependency. A writer who drafts by hand and relies on someone else for typed or digital versions has a different workflow from one who composes on a keyboard, and Desai is candid that she has not adopted the latter.
How she found a publisher
In the same interview, Desai recalls sending Cry, the Peacock to publishers whose names she had found in books on her shelves, and says the thirteenth publisher accepted it. This is her personal recollection of how the first submissions went. It is not a documented publishing statistic, and it should not be read as a general figure about how many rejections first novelists receive.
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Languages and the literary voice
Desai says she spoke and heard several languages at home and at school, but that English was the first language she learned to read and write, and that it has remained her literary language. The statement explains the choice of English for her fiction without making it a claim about any wider pattern among Indian writers.
What this interview does and does not establish
- The quotations come from a single interview published on July 6, 2024. They describe Desai’s routine as she described it then, and they do not establish her current working habits in 2026.
- The interview names Rosarita as her newest book at the time and Cry, the Peacock as her first. Those references describe the 2024 interview; they are not a guide to current availability or editions.
- No independent measurement of her hours or output appears in the interview. “At least a part of my day” is her own description, not a time log.
Other coverage of the same interviews
Several outlets covered Desai’s conversations around the same period, and their wording helps place the remarks:
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- Scroll, “‘I have spent at least a part of my day writing since the age of seven’: Anita Desai,” by Sayari Debnath, July 6, 2024. This is the primary source for the quotations above.
- ThePrint with PTI, “Outsider, that’s me: Anita Desai on belonging, identity and writing every day,” July 2024. It adds context on her routine and on Rosarita.
- Open, “‘Writing is a bad habit of mine. I have never stopped,’ says Anita Desai,” 2024. This is a headline-level report on writing as an ongoing practice, and it is most useful as confirmation that she describes writing as habitual rather than occasional.
Because these pieces are secondary, quote the Scroll wording when you need her exact words, and treat the others as context.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Where to go next
If the routine interests you, the most direct next step is the Scroll interview itself, which contains the surrounding questions and answers the headline omits. For Desai’s fiction, Cry, the Peacock and Rosarita are the two books the interview names; check a current bookseller or library catalogue for the edition available to you.
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