Kiran Desai is an Indian author, born on September 3, 1971. She is renowned for her novel The Inheritance of Loss, which secured the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award. In January 2015, The Economic Times recognized her as one of the "20 most influential global Indian women".

Desai is the daughter of the acclaimed author Anita Desai. Her literary debut, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998), was celebrated by prominent figures, including Salman Rushdie, and won the Betty Trask Award.