Documentation Swiss literatures

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[ book tip by Literatur Schweiz ] On August 6th, 1943, Chaim Soutine is travelling from Chinon, on the river Loire, to occupied Paris, hidden in a hearse. Soutine, the Jewish-Belarussian painter and contemporary of Chagall, Modigliani and Picasso, is gravely ill. He urgently needs an operation for a stomach ulcer, but the journey is taking much too long, 24 hours, because of the need to make detours round German army checkpoints.
A blizzard of intense and often bizarre images flash before the eyes of the persecuted artist in his morphine-induced delirium ... sometimes historical, sometimes fictional, these episodes tell the story of Soutine’s childhood in Smilovichy, near Minsk; his first steps as a painter in Vilnius; and his unshakeable determination to go to Paris, the centre of the art world. The novel portrays his improbable friendship with Modigliani, his sudden success as an artist and the end of his golden years in Paris.
But Soutine – who believes in the power of milk as his only medicine – is journeying through a «white paradise», at once both a clinic and a prison, in which he experiences a series of remarkable meetings and events. A mysterious «god in a white cloak» declares him cured, but forbids him ever again to paint. For an artist, though, a paradise without painting is without value. And so he starts secretly to paint – and is ready to pay whatever the price may be…
Soutine’s Last Journey is a novel about childhood, illness and art…about the pain of exile in Paris, the powerlessness of the written word and the overwhelming power of imagery.
(Martin Zingg, translated by Max Easterman, Rosie Goldsmith)
 
Recommended for translation by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia:
www.12swissbooks.ch

[ Favourite quote ] «Warum verformt Soutine die Körper seiner Modelle? fragt ein Neugieriger. Und Modigliani antwortet: Aber nein doch, das Modell wird während der Sitzung das, was er sieh, das Unsichtbare hinter dem Schein. Der vom Leben malträtierte, längst vom Absterben gezeichnete Mensch.»

[ book info ] Dutli, Ralph: Soutines letzte Fahrt. (original language: German) Soutin's Last Journey. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen, 2013 . ISBN: 978-3-8353-1208-1.