FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AND MAN BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR 'Sparkles with brilliant
observations on art and architecture friendship and loss' Guardia n '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
