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.
ISBN 9780241987056
