Only 75 people have had the honour of winning it since its inception in 1968. Of these, only two -- Mulk Raj Anand and R K Narayan -- have their body of work in English.

Now, three-time Booker nominee Anita Desai joins the select group of 21 Sahitya Akademi Fellows.

Features • My mother, Anita Desai • 'The greatest gift a novelist can    give us' • A creator of brave, brilliant,    trapped women: Salman    Rushdie on Anita Desai • Revisting Anita Desai • Question for Anita Desai? • ''I feel like a turtle with a piece of    India on my back' • 'We were the leftovers of the    colonial age' • 'It hurt to think my own country    was not giving me attention' • Met Anita Desai? Write about it

Desai has been given this honour 44 years after she published her first book Cry, The Peacock (1963) and 29 years after she won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Fire On The Mountain.

To commemorate this momentous occasion, Random House India is re-releasing three of her books -- Baumgartner's Bombay, Clear Light Of Day and In Custody. Adlab Cinemas will re-release the film In Custody, which was also scripted by Desai.

rediff.com joins the celebrations by taking an unusual look at Desai's work. Some of you, dear readers, will be lucky enough to meet her.