Down Mexico Way

Anita Desai spoke to The Guardian about her new book, set in Mexico:
"It's such an ancient country, you feel every stone has a history to tell. Mexico and India share a history of colonialism - 300 years of Spanish and British rule - along with this much, much longer past that goes back into myth. Physically, we're alike, too: I am constantly taken for a Mexican."
I like the way she defines her present relationship with India: with clarity, without apology or nostalgia.
"On her annual visits to India, to see her husband and eldest son, Desai feels more and more a stranger. 'One likes to imagine that things have stood still, but so much happens. I have become an observer, and not a participant. And so much has happened to me that to them, my friends and family in India, I am becoming a ghost.'"