A Painter of Our Time

"Fresh and inventive…dramatizes one of the cardinal dilemmas of our age."—The New York Times

The year is 1956. Soviet tanks are rolling into Budapest. In London an expatriate Hungarian painter named Janos Lavin has disappeared following a triumphant one-man show at a fashionable gallery. Where has he gone? Why has he gone? The only clues may lie in the diary, written in Hungarian, that Lavin has left behind in his studio.

In his urgent and visionary first novel, John Berger created a multilayered intellectual and moral detective story. For Lavin's diaries— found, translated, and annotated by his English friend John—suggest far more than the motives for his disappearance; they also reveal the ways in which a man may reconcile the solitary call of art with the demands of conscience. With uncanny understanding, John Berger has written one of the most convincing portraits of a painter in modern literature, a revelation of art and exile.

"John Berger is one of the most original of contemporary thinkers. [His] ability to see something clearly, with fresh surprise yet profound understanding, makes his writing singularly moving and informative."—Washington Times