A Handful of Arrows - by Maria Gainza (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of Optic Nerve and Portrait of an Unknown Lady, a rich and whimsical collection exploring the way works of art move both through the physical world and our cultural imaginations

One night in Buenos Aires, during the filming of his movie Tetro, Francis Ford Coppola told María Gainza, "An artist comes into the world with a quiver of golden arrows. He can shoot them all as a young man, as an adult, or even as an old man. He can also shoot them a few at a time, spaced out over the years. That would be ideal, but you know, the ideal is the enemy of the good."

A Handful of Arrows is full of gems and curiosities: in it, you'll find a watercolor by Cézanne stolen from a Buenos Aires museum, a walk along Thoreau's Walden Pond, the mysterious paintings of Bodhi Wind in Californian pools featured in Robert Altman's enigmatic Three Women, photographs rescued from a briefcase, evocative oil paintings by Catalan painter Nicolás Rubió of a French village where he spent the Spanish Civil War, the cosmopolitan life and memories of sculptor María Simón, the travels of painter Francis Hopkinson and his assistant Moon in Mexico, and a cursed painting by Titian.

Straddling the line between essay and narrative, María Gainza continues to explore new ways of understanding art and history, breaking down genre barriers and inviting readers into her kaleidoscopic world.

About the Author

MARIA GAINZA was born in Buenos Aires, where she still resides. She has worked as a correspondent for The New York Times in Buenos Aires, as well as for ArtNews. For more than ten years she was a regular contributor to the magazine Artforum and Radar, the cultural supplement of Página/12. Her debut Optic Nerve was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, and her second novel Portrait of an Unknown Lady was named a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.

THOMAS BUNSTEAD is a writer and translator based in East Sussex, England. He has translated some of the leading Spanish-language writers working today, including Eduardo Halfon, Yuri Herrera, Agustín Fernández Mallo, and Enrique Vila-Matas, and his own writing has appeared in publications such as Kill Author, The White Review, and The Times Literary Supplement. He is an editor at the translation journal In Other Words.