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Rosarita

By: Anita Desai
Narrated by: Meera Simhan
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Summary

'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.
©2024 Anita Desai (P)2024 Macmillan Publishers International Limited
Family Life Literary Fiction Magical Realism
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Critic reviews

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)
Anita Desai is one of the most brilliant and subtle writers ever to have described the meeting of eastern and western culture (Alison Lurie)
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)

What listeners say about Rosarita

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Profile Image for Liz

tedious

Im usually a big fan of Desai's work - this is incredibly slow despite it also being very short. it's so bad, i'm going to return it. avoid

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  • Overall
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Profile Image for sam

Utterly disappointing

Very little story, almost none, the book is reads like a (lyrical) guidebook of small Mexican villages/towns and travelling between them. Other than that, there's really no story at all. Also it is the length of a short story, but costs same as a full novel. I kept waiting for the story to develop or even to unfold a bit, but...NOTHING happens...and then suddenly, it ends. With no conclusion.

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