by Anita Desai
First published 2025
Bonita sits alone on a park bench in San Miguel, Mexico. She came here from India to study Spanish, seeking solitude in a place where she knows no one. A stranger approaches and insists Bonita looks exactly like her mother, who once traveled this same route from India to Mexico as a young artist. Bonita protests that her mother never painted and never visited Mexico. The woman persists with her claims. Bonita decides to follow her into a story that will pull her and her mother in different directions while bringing them together. The past pushes against the present, threatening to reshape everything Bonita thought she knew about her family and herself. This is a story about memory, loss, and a young woman's fight to create her own future.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: India, Mexico, San Miguel
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
112 pages · Hardcover · Scribner