Sebastian Shakespeare
The Famous Gaugins
The Way To Paradise
By Mario Vargas Llosa
Faber & Faber 461pp £16.99
IN MARIO VARGAS Llosa's latest novel there are two stories - that of Paul Gauguin, the Post-Impressionist painter, and that of Gauguin's grandmother Flora Tristan. Flora never met her grandson - she died in 1844, four years before his birth - and at first glance thev seem to have little in common: Flora was a suffragette, thought poets monsters of egotism, and, after a disastrous marriage, renounced sex; Gauguin, by contrast, set out to create his own private Eden, believed art was inseparable from religion, and was a sexual libertine. But as their stories unfold in alternate chapters, narrated through a series of flashbacks, we come to see that they share more than simple blood ties.
Both spent time in the author's native Peru and were indelibly marked, if not transformed, by the experience. Flora, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Peruvian father and a French mother, grew up in poverty in Paris and sailed to South America to claim her inheritance. She was radicalised by
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Of the siblings Gwen and Augustus John, it is Augustus who has commanded most attention from collectors and connoisseurs.
Was he really the finer artist, asks Tanya Harrod, or is it time Gwen emerged from her brother’s shadow?
Tanya Harrod - Cut from the Same Canvas
Tanya Harrod: Cut from the Same Canvas - Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell
literaryreview.co.uk
As Apple has grown, one country above all has proved able to supply the skills and capacity it needs: China.
What compromises has Apple made in its pivot east? @carljackmiller investigates.
Carl Miller - Return of the Mac
Carl Miller: Return of the Mac - Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company by Patrick McGee
literaryreview.co.uk
We are saddened to hear of the death of Edmund White.
We've lifted the paywall on Richard Davenport-Hines's 2014 review of White's Paris memoir.
Richard Davenport-Hines - Scenes from a Literary Life
Richard Davenport-Hines: Scenes from a Literary Life - Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris by Edmund White
literaryreview.co.uk