A moving reflection on the intersection of life and art, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return.
Hisham Matar was born in New York City to Libyan parents and spent his childhood first in Tripoli and then in Cairo. He is the author of two novels, In the Country of Men and Anatomy of a Disappearance and a work of non-fiction, The Return. In the Country of Men was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the National Critics Book Circle Award in the US and won six international literary awards. The Return won a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction and the Folio Prize and was shortlisted for several other awards around the world including the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction. Hisham Matar lives in London.
An intensely moving book, at once an affirmation of
life's quiet dignities in the face of loss and a portrait of
a city that comes to stand for all cities * The Economist *
This slim, beautifully produced book, sparkles with
brilliant observations on art and architecture, friendship and
loss. Matar's prose is exquisitely measured and precise
- not unlike one of the paintings from the Sienese school that he
has admired for so many years * PD Smith, Guardian *
This book tells us much about the extraordinary power of art to
inspire * Literary Review *
What a jewel this is, driven by desire, grief, yearning
loss, illuminated by hope, the kindness of strangers
continually making tribute to the delicacy and grace of the Arab
home the author lost so many years ago * Peter Carey, The
Australian, Books of the Year *
A fluid series of meditations on the big questions of life,
on love, faith, time and on the nature and purpose of art,
the influence of architecture and, most important of all to this
author, grief, mourning and memory * Spectator *
Mingles insightful and often moving art history with frank
personal recollection in a way that reminds us of the
communality we share not only with our contemporaries, but with all
historical epochs. I can think of no better expression of the
humane than this economical, modest, yet altogether breathtaking
book * New Statesman *
Hisham Matar is a brilliant narrative architect and prose
stylist, his pared-down approach and measured pace a
striking complement to the emotional tumult of his material *
Wall Street Journal *
What interests him in this art is the human knowledge the
painter is trying to convey. The description is exact and
graceful, as Matar's prose tends to be * New York Times, 11 New
Books We Recommend This Week *
A Month in Siena bears all the hallmarks of Matar's writing:
it is exquisitely constructed and the use of language is
precise and delicately nuanced without pretension. And there
is a deceptive simplicity to his endeavour: to look at art. What
emerges is an altogether more complex philosophical exploration of
death, love, art, relationships and time * Financial Times
*
A deeply moving, engrossing book. Written in elegant,
concise prose, it is a remarkable mediation on life, loss,
mourning, exile, friendship and the power of art * Wall Street
Journal *
Hisham Matar has the quality all historians - of the world and
the self - most need: he knows how to stand back and let the past
speak * Hilary Mantel *
A thing of beauty and wisdom * Monocle *
A dazzling exploration of art's impact on his life and
writing, and a moving contemplation of grief * Financial
Times *
An exquisite, deeply affecting book * Evening Standard *
Everybody should get to spend a month with Mr. Matar, looking at
paintings * Zadie Smith *
Bewitching . . . Meditating on art, history and the
relationship between them, this is both a portrait of a city and an
affirmation of life's quiet dignities in the face of loss * The
Economist, Books of the Year *
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