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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