As she teases out her multiple narrative we meet over-privileged Indians who put on absurd English airs racist, ignorant and distinctly under-intelligent English people Indians in America who use Gandhi's image to make money while exploiting other Indians and Indians in America who allow themselves to be exploited. But the irony is that they get off lightly compared to everyone else. Desai certainly doesn't glorify Kalimpong's non-Indian majority. There's perhaps a small grain of truth to these claims. Its fictional portrayal must have hit a raw nerve, especially since Desai herself was, as one man put it at the time, ' an outsider' who made the 'whole town … strange.' She particularly seems to have offended those of Nepalese descent who thought themselves described as little better than thieves and menial fools. As the book details, the rebellion was bloody and chaotic. The novel tells of a 1980s rebellion of the ethnic Nepalese in the Himalayan town, who were fed up (in Desai's words) of being 'treated like the minority in the place where they were the majority'. Sadly, it wasn't fans of fellow shortlisted author Edward St Aubyn's Mothers' Milk stoking the bonfires, but the outraged residents of Kalimpong. What was unusual that following on from its success the book was subject to protests and book-burning.

So far so normal – Hilary Mantel's victory this year is the first time I can remember a favourite winning. Comparatively few had read her book, and the bookies had her down at fifth or sixth favourite. Although she had a famous mother (Anita Desai) who had herself been on the Booker shortlist three times, Kiran was relatively unknown. When Kiran Desai's Inheritance Of Loss won the 2006 Booker Prize, a few eyebrows were raised.

The inheritance of loss novel