Anita Desai · Cambridge IGCSE Literature in English
Everything you need to understand Desai’s novel, and write about it brilliantly.
A complete companion to Fire on the Mountain: the novel explained Part by Part, the big ideas untangled, a quotation bank worth learning, and a marking desk that reads your writing the way a teacher would. Built for the Paper 1 prose question.
The novel, Part by Part
Three parts. One long, burning summer.
Desai builds Fire on the Mountain in three parts, each named for a person and a movement towards or away from the house at Carignano. Each guide below tells you what happens, shows you how Desai is working beneath the quiet surface, and ends with a task that builds towards the exam. References are given by part and chapter, since editions vary.
Nanda Kaul at Carignano
An old woman, a house on a ridge, and a hard-won solitude about to be broken by a letter.
Part II · Chapters 1–21Raka comes to Carignano
A strange, wild great-granddaughter arrives, and the long dry summer sets two solitaries circling.
Part III · Chapters 1–13Ila Das leaves Carignano
A friend comes to tea, a child marriage is defied, and the novel gathers to its terrible close.
Revision essentials
Untangle the big ideas
Whether you are revising for a mock, catching up on missed lessons, or reading the novel on your own, these pages give you the same ground a full course would cover.
- Eight key themes, each with its development, quotations and exam angle
- Every character that matters, from Nanda Kaul to Ila Das
- Context that earns marks: Desai, post-independence India, women and place
- A quotation bank grouped by focus, with the method spotted for you
Writing that improves
Feedback, not grades
Paste in an analytical paragraph or a full essay and get annotations in the margin, just as a teacher would write on your work: what is working, where to push further, and questions to make your next draft sharper.
“Lovely, you have the fire image. Now, which single word makes it frightening?”
No scores. No grades. No levels. Only the sort of honest, encouraging marginalia that makes writing better, in line with what the Cambridge examiners value.
How to use this site
Three ways in
- Reading the novel for the first time? Read each part first, then its guide page. The “Think it through” questions are best attempted before you read our commentary.
- Revising? Start with Themes and the Quotation bank, then test yourself against the practice questions on the Exam Skills page.
- Writing? Plan with the paragraph and essay guides on the Exam Skills page, write, then run your work through the marking desk and redraft.
Teaching the novel? The teacher area has a scheme of work, lesson sequences for every part and assessment guidance.