cover image Baumgartner's Bombay

Baumgartner's Bombay

Anita Desai. Penguin Books, $9 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-14-013176-5

Hugo Baumgartner narrowly escapes the Nazis by fleeing to Calcutta. There he is imprisoned alongside dedicated Nazis by indifferent Anglo-Indian authorities. PW found the book ``occasionally irritating in its appropriation of history for its own purposes,'' but noted: ``Desai's artful control of her narrative's agenda results in a compelling fiction.'' (Sept.)