Kamala Markandaya (Kamala Purnaiya Taylor) was born in 1924 in Chimakurti, India. She is a Brahman, which is the highest caste of Hindu, yet she writes empathetically and convincingly about peasant life in south Indian villages. Markandaya studied at the University of Madras, worked as a journalist in India, then married an Englishman and moved to London in 1948, a year after India gained independence from Britain. Markandaya has an interest in dignifying her people, so she creates complex, moving Characters and covers Themes that she hopes will debunk preconceived notions many Westerners have of Indian people as inferior to whites both socially and intellectually. Nectar in a Sieve was widely acclaimed for its portrayal of the culture clash between whites and nonwhites, and its success at revealing the commonality of the human condition. It received rave reviews and won the American Library Association’s Notable Book Award in 1955.
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