"Maylis de Kerangal conjures the same painterly realism her characters hope to achieve in paint" London Magazine

"Evocative and exhilerating" Booklist

"Maylis de Kerangal is mining a rich and individual seam" TImes Literary Supplement

Behind the ornate doors of the Institut de Peinture in Brussels, Kate, Jonas and Paula begin their apprenticeship in decorative painting, the art of visual deception. An intense year of study will cement a friendship that lasts long after their formal education ends.

Paula's initiation into trompe l'oeil will take her back through time and place as she strives for perfection. From her work on the film sets of Cinecittà to the prehistoric caves of Lascaux, her experiences will transcend artistic endeavour and gradually reveal something of her own inner world and the secret, unreachable desires of her heart.

This is a coming-of-age novel like no other: an atmospheric and highly aesthetic portrayal of love, art and craftsmanship from the prize-winning author of Birth of a Bridge and Mend the Living.

Translated from the French by Jessica Moore

"As she has so often done, de Kerangal shows there is poetry to be found in our jargon, and stories embedded in our tools . . . This is writing that defies haste, that slows the eye. It is also a mighty feat of translation . . . Cements [de Kerangal's] reputation as one of contemporary fiction's most gifted sentence builders" - Guardian

"The book is a joyful testament to the rigours of research, and to the translator's art too . . . Maylis de Kerangal is mining a rich and individual seam" - TLS

"Intensely alive, encompassing both the technical and the poetic, emotion and cerebrality" - Le Monde

"Always brilliant, executed in flowing, lyrical prose that had already reached the firmament in [Mend the Living] . . . De Kerangal finds fiction in reality; precise, technical vocabulary is imbued with rich imagination and meaning. And mastering trompe-l'œil - isn't that the ideal metaphor for the work of a novelist?" - Libération

"The art of painting in perfect harmony with de Kerangal's writing; visual, flamboyant, assured . . . in perfect alignment with her subject" - Télérama

"

Kerangal's elegant, sexy, subtly Proustian, and fluidly dimensional drama of discipline and passion, imitation and
imagination is resplendently evocative and exhilarating.

"Long looping sentences, beautifully translated from the French by Jessica Moore, are balanced by taut scene changes . . . De Kerangal conjures the same painterly realism that her characters hope to achieve in paint" - London Magazine