Anita Desai’s new novella, Rosarita, tells the story of Bonita, an Indian woman who is studying Spanish in Mexico when she gets approached by a woman who claims to have been her late mother’s friend when she was learning how to paint in the country. However, as far as Bonita knows, her mother never visited Mexico and she was never an artist. Although she dismisses it initially, this new piece of information makes Bonita look at events from her childhood in a different light and, slowly, she realises that the Trickster, as she nicknames the woman, could be telling the truth. This is the beginning of a journey through Mexico and through time, in which Bonita follows what feels like the ghost of her mother as she constructs a more realistic view of her. 
 
In this journey, the narration delves into themes of tradition and how it relates to marriage and motherhood, the (im)possibility of ever truly knowing someone, especially our mothers, the connection between the (post)colonial histories of India and Mexico, memory and identity. In writing that is lyrical and quiet, touched by sadness, grief and many unanswered questions, Desai constructs a story that feels like a memory, like a dream into a fantasy world.