Description

‘Anita Desai is a magnificent writer’ – Salman Rushdie
‘Every new work from her is a gift’ – Kamila Shamsie
‘Rosarita is transcendent . . . a testament to Desai’s enduring genius as a writer’ – The Guardian
‘Tantalising’ – Financial Times

From three times Booker-shortlisted author Anita Desai, Rosarita is a beautiful, haunting novel that explores memory, grief, and a young woman’s determination to forge her own path.

A young student sits on a bench in a park in San Miguel, Mexico. Bonita is away from her home in India to learn Spanish. She is alone, somewhere she has no connection to. It is bliss.

And then a woman approaches her. The woman claims to recognize Bonita because she is the spitting image of her mother, who made the same journey from India to Mexico as a young artist. No, says Bonita, my mother didn’t paint. She never travelled to Mexico. But this strange woman insists, and so Bonita follows her. Into a story where Bonita and her mother will move apart and come together, and where the past threatens to flood the present, or re-write it.

Praise for Anita Desai

‘Bewitchingly beautiful’ – The Times
‘Profoundly elegiac’ – New Statesman

Publisher Review

It’s been over a decade since [Anita Desai’s] last work of fiction. She’s a writer I’ve loved since my adolescence, whose sharp observations and elegant sentences I admire increasingly as the years go on. Every new work from her is a gift — Kamila Shamsie, Stylist As taut and weird and entrancing as a story by Jorge Luis Borges. If Rosarita is to be her swansong . . . then it’s a magnificent way to go out — George Cochrane, The Telegraph (5 star review) The three-times Booker-shortlisted writer is back with a poignant novella about one young woman’s thwarted attempt to escape her past . . . a thoughtful read that will delight Desai stalwarts and send newcomers scurrying to her impressive backlist; leaving all hopeful this won’t be her last piece of short fiction — Susie Mesure, The i A tantalising tale of memory, family and fantasy . . . evocative, subtle and enigmatic. Desai revels in equivocation and possibility, embracing the ambiguity of memory itself to tell a shimmering, sometimes fevered tale in which a mother and daughter are pulled apart and fused together * Financial Times * There is a dreamy and wistful mood to this very short gem, lulling in its revelations and comforting in its gentle appeal. A wonder of a novel. — Paul Perry, Irish Sunday Independent Her writing is sensuous, radical and uncannily perceptive * The Times * To compare Anita Desai’s fiction with that of Chekhov or the short stories of Tolstoy is not extravagant; it is entirely warranted * The Irish Times * Anita Desai is one of the most brilliant and subtle writers ever to have described the meeting of eastern and western culture — Alison Lurie All her stories are full of a confidence in human nature that is a rarity and a pleasure to encounter * The Spectator * Desai has a wicked, subtle humour . . . and her characters are beautifully described . . . Her writing is polished and mature, with a wit she cleverly underplays * The Daily Telegraph * One of the most gifted of contemporary Indian writers * The New Yorker * Anita Desai writes exquisitely * The Scotsman * She has the ability to shape and refine a piece of work of her own intense imagination into an independent work of art * The Times * Desai writes powerfully and provocatively . . . Rosarita is a transcendent late gift: both a testament to Desai’s enduring genius as a writer and a wholly remarkable vindication of literature’s power to illuminate the conundrums of human experience. This is a novel of profound philosophical inquiry * The Guardian * Rosaira tells of the universal craving to belong — Stevie Davies, The Literary Review Strikingly vivid . . . this book is the literary equivalent of a lucid dream, a surreal and deeply personal experience * The Skinny * The perfect read for a sultry summer afternoon * The i * Poignant . . . this has Desai’s insightful characterisations that craft a haunting narrative, offering readers a contemplative and deeply resonant meditation that lingers after the page — Chaya Colman and Sophie Ezra, Glamour, Best new books of July 2024, according to literary experts Rosarita is a thoughtful read that will delight Desai stalwarts and send newcomers scurrying to her impressive backlist; leaving all hopeful that this won’t be her last piece of short fiction Who are you? Desai’s first novel in a decade, written in the second person, turns brilliantly on this question — The Telegraph, The 75 hottest books of 2024 so far Enigmatic . . . weaves a supple tale of memory, secrets, belonging and becoming — Hephzibah Anderson, Scottish Mail on Sunday, The Best New Fiction It is beautifully told, the story itself also like a work of art. It is a perfect little gift to give oneself or another — Brid Conroy, Mayo News Swirling under the delicacy of the prose is a terrible turbulence. Who was Rosarita? * The Times Literary Supplement * The deceptively slender format can briskly encompass whole worlds and histories, or alternatively, like the short story, depend on strict excisions and limitations for its effects. Rosarita does both. * Spectator *