A01=Penelope Curtis
Aristide Maillol
art history
Author_Penelope Curtis
Category=AGA
Category=FBA
Category=FT
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eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
French Catalonia
French sculpture
generational saga
Les Fugitives
literary fiction
Occitanie
Paul Wintrebert
Penelope Curtis
Villa Wintrebert
women's writing
Product details
- ISBN 9781068433870
- Dimensions: 120 x 180mm
- Publication Date: 03 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Les Fugitives
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Banyuls-sur-Mer, French Catalonia: one hot summer in the 1970s, the
lives of three generations of women converge in the long tropical
garden hidden behind the Villa Wintrebert, named after the biologist who
lived there with his wife. As in her debut After Nora (2024),
Penelope Curtis deftly weaves fact and fiction in this moving story of
childhood and of adult complicity. Harmony beween la belle
Eugénie and the young Monique is disrupted when a well-intentioned
commission to the renowned local sculptor, Aristide Maillol, shines a
light on the fundamental fragility of the women’s relationship, on which
the villa and its garden had depended. Decades later, Monique invites
Eva and her two little girls into the villa, where traces of the past
imprint themselves on the present.
Penelope Curtis grew up in Glasgow and studied art history in England and France. Over the course of a distinguished career in the arts, she has directed the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, Tate Britain in London, and, most recently, the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. As an art historian, she is especially known for her work on Barbara Hepworth, about whom she has written a best-selling biography, and for many exhibitions on the materials and meanings of sculpture. Her most recent books are her first novel After Nora, and The Pliable Plane.
