FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AND MAN BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR 'Sparkles with brilliant
observations on art and architecture friendship and loss' Guardian 'Everybody should get to
spend a month with Mr. Matar looking at paintings' Zadie Smith Wall Street Journal Books of
the Year _______________________________________________ Matar was nineteen years old when his
father was kidnapped. In the year following he found himself turning to art particularly the
great paintings of the Sienese School. They became a refuge and a way to think about the world
outside the urgencies of the present. A quarter of a century later having found no trace of
his father Matar finally visits the birthplace of those paintings. A Month in Siena is the
encounter between the writer and the city. It is an immersion in painting a consideration of
love grief and a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and life.
_______________________________________________ 'A dazzling exploration of art's impact on his
life and writing and a moving contemplation of grief' Financial Times 'I can think of no
better expression of the humane than this economical modest yet altogether breathtaking book'
New Statesman Books of the Year 'Bewitching intensely moving' The Economist Books of the
Year
