SLICE OF LIFE

Writer Anita Desai gives us a masterpiece of a novella at 89

- Anita Desai, Brinda Bose

ROSARITA by Anita Desai PICADOR INDIA ₹499; 112 pages

A nita Desai, after 13 years of silence, has given you, her reader, a rare gift. A new novel, rosarita; a new form, a novel-fragment; a new protagonist, you. If anyone (uncharitably) wondered what Desai might have to offer at 89, these 94 pages of an exquisite hardcover edition hold glimpses of magic. On its jacket, embossed on a gorgeous self-portrait by Amrita Sher-Gil-the Hungarian-Indian painter with an enigmatic, thrilling life-story-is the title rosarita in lowercase lettering, with the author's name below it in larger font and bold capitals. Does the sylph-like rosarita of this intriguing tale exist, or is she a fantasy, an image of who you could grow up to be, or the one who grew you up: your mother in some secret other life that you never knew of? Does Vicky-the Stranger, morphing into the Trickster-who leads you astray in the course of this telling, exist either?