Leonora in the Morning Light
A Novel
London, 1937: Leonora Carrington is a twenty-year-old on the cusp of independence, discovering her own creative powers as a painter, when she falls into a turbulent, passionate love affair with Max Ernst, a married artist twenty-six years older. Determined to break free from her family’s upper-class expectations,
she follows him to Paris, where she is thrust into the vibrant, revolutionary world of studios and cafes, where rising visionaries of the Surrealist movement, like Andre Breton, Pablo Picasso, Lee Miller, Man Ray, and Salvador Dali, are challenging conventional approaches to art and life. Inspired by their freedom, Leonora begins to experiment with her own work, translating vivid stories of her youth onto canvas and gaining recognition under her own name—until, suddenly, the shadow of war and occupation begins to spread over Europe, and headlines emerge denouncing Max and his circle as “degenerates.”
Forced to flee France, Max and Leonora are separated, but both begin remarkable journeys that will shape them as artists and individuals. On the run from an internment camp, Max seeks the aid of Peggy Guggenheim, who is helping artists escape from the Nazis, while Leonora, once trapped in a Spanish asylum, begins to claim her identity and unleash the quiet, inner power that will eventually make her one of the most influential women of our time.
Based on true events and historical figures, Leonora in the Morning Light is an unforgettable story of love, art, and destiny that restores a twentieth-century heroine to her rightful place.
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—The New York Times, The Ultimate Summer Escape: Historical Fiction
—Libro.fm, Author Interview
—Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review
—Off The Shelf, Editors Recommend: 7 Buzzworthy Books You Need to Read This Spring
—Chicago Review of Books, Realism and Surrealism in “Leonora in the Morning Light”
—KIRKUS REVIEWS, A satisfying historical novel about love, art, and war.
—La Jordana, Editan en EU una novela histórica que abarca la relación entre los pintores Leonora Carrington y Max Ernst
One of The Oprah Magazine’s “Most Anticipated Historical Fiction Novels That Will Sweep You Away”
and LitHub’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2021.”
LEoNORA's Gallery
Artwork from Leonora in the Morning Light (Die Surrealistin)
Translations
Leonora in the Morning Light has been translated into German and published by Kindler Books, as well as Polish and published by Rebis.