Anita Desai’s newest offering Rosarita is a dreamy and wistful tale of a matriarchal haunting in Mexico

Fiction

The writer Anita Desai in New York. Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

Paul Perry

Rosarita is a mysterious new novel by three-time ­Booker-shortlisted octogenarian, Indian writer Anita Desai.

It opens in San Miguel de Allende, a colonial-era city in Mexico’s central highlands, known for its arts scene, with a young ­woman taking in the sunshine while newspaper sellers and balloon vendors do their trade.