A Month in Siena

'A dazzling exploration of art's impact on his life and writing, and a moving contemplation of grief' Financial Times.

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.