Kiran Desai was born in New Delhi, India, and lived there until she was 10. She and her mother then lived in England for a year, and finally moved to the United States, where she studied creative writing at Bennington College, Hollins University, and Columbia University.

In January 2010, the Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk announced that he was in a relationship with Desai.

Her first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was published in 1998 and received accolade from such notable figures as Salman Rushdie. It went on to win the Betty Trask Award, a prize given by the Society of Authors for the best new novels by citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations under the age of 35.

Her second book, The Inheritance of Loss, (2006) has been widely praised by critics throughout Asia, Europe and the United States and won the 2006 Man Booker Prize as well as the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award.

In September 2007 she was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme hosted by Michael Berkeley on BBC Radio 3. BBC - Radio 3 - Private Passions In May 2007 she was the featured author at the inaugural Asia House Festival of Asian Literature.