The WHITE RAVENS 2011
This year's collection contains 250 titles in 36 languages from 52 countries. Number 146:
Calveiro, Marcos O pintor do sombreiro de malvas (The painter with the hollyhock hat)
Vigo: Xerais, 2010. – 174 p.
France/1890 – Van Gogh, Vincent – Art – Painting – Nonconformism
In the summer of 1890, the first-person narrator of this novel, a hot-headed young man in a difficult period of life, is sent by his mother to his great-aunt living near Paris in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise. There he becomes acquainted with Vincent Van Gogh, who invites him to accompany him on his painting trips. The ensuing conversations construct a detailed picture of the famous painter weeks before his death. Van Gogh’s inability to fit in, which the boy recognises in himself, too, the painter’s self-destructive alcohol consumption, and his close relationship to his brother Theo are well-illumined, as are the paintings of Van Gogh’s manically productive creative phase. Set against the historical foil of life in the last years of the nineteenth century, this sensitively “painted” portrait of the artist and the representation of the young protagonist’s emotional world are harmoniously connected. (Age: 14+)
MARCOS CALVEIRO