From “world-class writer” (The Washington Post) and three-time Booker finalist Anita Desai, an exquisitely written stunning exploration of love, place, memory, history, and the secrets between a mother and her daughter.
Away from her home in India to study Spanish, Bonita sits on a bench in El Jardin de San Miguel, Mexico, basking in the park’s lush beauty, when she slowly becomes aware that she is being watched. An elderly woman approaches her, claiming that she knew Bonita’s mother—that they had been friends when Bonita’s mother had lived in Mexico as a talented young artist. Bonita tells the stranger that she must be mistaken; her mother was not a painter and had never travelled to Mexico. Though the stranger leaves, Bonita cannot shake the feeling that she is being followed.
Days later, haunted by the encounter, Bonita seeks out the woman, whom she calls The Trickster, and follows her on a tour of what may, or may not, have been her mother’s past. As a series of mysterious events brilliantly unfold, Bonita is unable to escape The Trickster’s presence, as she is forced to confront questions of truth and identity, and specters of familial and national violence.
A masterpiece of storytelling from a gifted writer, Rosarita is a profound mediation on mothers and marriage, art and self-expression, and how the traumas from the past can impact future generations.
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“A novel about storytelling, history, and belonging. It is about the desire to know one’s forebears, and therefore gain a greater insight into oneself…A wonder of a novel.”
— Irish Independent (Dublin)
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Anita Desai is a renowned author of short stories and of more than a dozen novels. She has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times for her novels Clear Light of Day, In Custody, and Fasting, Feasting. She is the John E. Burchard Professor emerita of humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and the Royal Society of Literature. She was born and educated in India.
Meera Simhan is a film and stage actress who was born in England and raised in San Diego. Her first lead film role was as Linda Jones in Date Movie in 2006. Since then she has appeared in a number of films and television shows, including Iron Man, Law & Order, The Young and the Restless, and The Mentalist.