A Month in Siena

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return comes a profoundlymoving contemplation of the relationship between art and life. nFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return comes a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and life. n nNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND EVENING STANDARD n n After finishing his powerful memoir The Return, Hisham Matar, seeking solace and pleasure, traveled to Siena, Italy. Always finding comfort and clarity in great art, Matar immersed himself in eight significant works from the Sienese School of painting, which flourished from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Artists he had admired throughout his life, including Duccio and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, evoke earlier engagements he'd had with works by Caravaggio and Poussin, and the personal experiences that surrounded those moments. nIncluding beautiful full-color reproductions of the artworks, A Month in Siena is about what occurred between Matar, those paintings, and the city. That month would be an extraordinary period in the writer's life: an exploration of how art can console and disturb in equal measure, as well as an intimate encounter with a city and its inhabitants. This is a gorgeous meditation on how centuries-old art can illuminate our own inner landscape--current relationships, long-lasting love, grief, intimacy, and solitude--and shed further light on the present world around us. n nPraise for A Month in Siena n nAs exquisitely structured as The Return, driven by desire, yearning, loss, illuminated by the kindness of strangers. A Month in Siena is a triumph.--Peter Careyn