New Delhi: The fierce controversy over alleged racist slurs hurled at Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty on British reality TV show Celebrity Big Brother is attracting reactions from across to Globe.
Booker winner author Kiran Desai is the latest to join the bandwagon. Desai, who is in the country, condemned the treatment meted out to Shilpa on the show.
Desai on Friday said that racism was a “reality” in the West and could not be wished away.
“I think it is a huge issue. This is at the heart of it all. You look at what is happening in Iraq and the attitude of the western world towards the rest of the world, it is an enormous issue,” the author said.
She added that though efforts are on to promote multiculturalism in the West, racism was still an big issue.
The Inheritance of Loss is the 35-year-old author’s second book and deals rich with sadness about globalisation and joy at the small surviving intimacies of Indian village life.
She recalls that when she was declared as the winner, some people commented "another Indian". "This has an underlying racist tone," she noted.
Desai, daughter of well-known Indian novelist Anita Desai - to whom The Inheritance of Loss is dedicated - is the youngest woman to win the award, eclipsing the works of five other short-listed authors.
Educated in India, England and the United States, Desai published her first novel, in 1998.
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