A Month in Siena

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Shortly after completing his searing work of non-fiction, The Return, Hisham Matar set off for Siena, a city he had never visited before. His plan was to see the paintings of the Sienese school, to immerse himself in the work of artists he admired perhaps above all others.

This month in Siena would be an extraordinary period in the life of this writer: an immersion in art, a consideration of grief and violence, an intimate encounter with the city and its inhabitants. Hisham Matar's short book is the story of how art can console and disturb in equal measure. It is a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and the human condition.

Critics Review

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

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