Rosarita

Author: Anita Desai
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Scribner, 2025
Pages: 112
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: 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 she had never traveled 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, who 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.

Review: Once we cross into Magical Realism, authors lose me. I can't follow what isn't grounded in reality. The author's language and descriptions were en pointe, but the story was lost on me. I couldn't follow what was real and what wasn't.