Rights Information

Translation rights and other rights are available, please contact the publisher

Reviews

‘I really loved this book, for the story, for the characters, but above all for teaching me about a life and an era I didn’t know before. I will seek out the author’s other novels and would recommend this one wholeheartedly to book groups. 5/5’ – Rebecca Kershaw on Nudge

‘Readers who enjoy art and history will appreciate this lively account of the Bohemian existence. It is a good choice for book groups as well. Public libraries and synagogue libraries collecting fiction should consider it.’ – Barbara Bibel AJL Reviews

‘The story is beautifully subjective, it puts us right in puddle of neuroses and emotion that is the artist. Which is wonderful, because this book is always heartfelt and never dry. It doesn’t just tell us what happened, it shows us what it feels like. I loved that. It’s so evocative of time and place. And it’s also often very funny.’ – Hermione Flavia on CravenWild

‘It succeeds as an evocative, layered story of one man’s drive to describe his world through art. Its subject isn’t just about the painter and his work but an insight into Jewish history through the lens of Chagall’s subjects – often based on Jewish tales and proverbs – and how the Russian Revolution, initially seen as a positive, anti-oppressive move, became another means of oppression.’ – Emma Lee on her blog

‘With a vibrant sense of time and two places, this is an entrancing vision of the lives of Chagall and other artists whose creative drive was fuelled by political turbulence and persecution, personal hardship and tragedy. Lovers of art and history will find it fascinating.’ – Isabel Costello on her blog the Literary Sofa

‘I loved getting to know Marc Chagall through this book – learning about the personal so that we could better understand his passion. Michael Dean has written a beautiful novel chock full of emotion, history, and creativity – I loved it!’ – Nadia on her blog A Bookish Way of Life

Lovers of art and history will find it fascinating and any ‘creative’ will find something to relate to in this rich and colourful story.’ – Isabel Costello on the Literary Sofa

‘I found the story is superbly written and it flows very smoothly which makes it a great pleasure to read. In fact at times I found it hard to put down!’ – Sara Boorman in a second review on nudge-book

‘The writing combines the first person narrative with the historical detail and loving descriptions of places and people, giving Chagall a unique and distinctive voice and turning him into a real person, with defects and qualities, with his pettiness and his peculiar sense of humour. Although we might not like him or fully understand him, we get to walk in his shoes and to share in his sense of wonder and in his urgency to create.’ – Olga on her booklikes blog

‘The book will be of interest to anyone wishing to learn about Chagall and what inspired some of his greatest work. Historical Novel Society

Author Biography

Michael Dean has a history degree from Worcester College, Oxford, an MSc in Applied Linguistics from Edinburgh University and a translator’s qualification (AIL) in German.  

He has published several novels. The Darkness into Light omnibus (Sharpe Books, 2017): The Rise and Fall of the Nazis comprises five titles: Before the Darkness – about the German Jewish Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, assassinated in 1922; The Crooked Cross – about Hitler and art; The Enemy Within – about Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation; Hour Zero – about Germany in 1946; Magic City – a novel of Jewish identity set in Germany in the early 1970s.

He also published some stand-alone novels: Thorn, (Bluemoose Books, 2011) about Spinoza and Rembrandt; I, Hogarth (Duckworth-Overlook, 2012), which sets out to unify Hogarth’s life with his art; The White Crucifixion, a novel about Marc Chagall, was published by Holland Park Press in February 2018.

His non-fiction includes a book about Chomsky and many educational publications.