Synopsis

It's an image that surfaces with the mysterious force of a dream. An extraordinary existence takes shape in this novel: the life adventure of Marguerite Yourcenar, recounted by the figures who inhabited it. Between narration and monody, the many voices speak page after page, immersing us in Marguerite's story: her birth in Brussels marked by the loss of her mother, her childhood in a castle among the ancient trees of French Flanders in Mont-Noir, the care of nannies Barbe and Camille, the gaze of Michel René, the loving father who will initiate her into the secrets of knowledge and beauty. It is also a journey into the geographies of feelings and spaces: the Dutch coast overlooking the North Sea, Greece, Italy, America as a new home, and that island in Maine where the writer will find a place of possible abandonment and complete the writing of the Memoirs of Hadrian. With a clear style and a lively imagination, Eugenio Murrali gives substance to the significant journey of a courageous and free woman who lived through the twentieth century, experiencing two world wars, the Cold War and, in her private life, the passions of the 1930s, the long love shared with her partner Grace, and the painful ardour of her final years with Jerry.