Claire Berest is the author of novels, Bellevue (2015), Gabriele (2017), which appeared in the 2025 New York Times list of best historical fiction, Rien n'est noir (2019), winner of the ELLE Readers Grand Prize, Artifices (2021), L'epaisseur d'un cheveu (2023), and works of non-fiction. Her most recent is La chair des autres (2024), about the trial of 'Mazan's rapes' and the story of Gisele Pelicot.
Like wandering through a painting - riotous with colour, overflowing with imagery. I had moments where I almost had to stop reading to take a breath, but it captures something of Frida herself that feels totally right. If you want to be absolutely steeped in her world, you'll love it -- Emily Howes, author of The Painter's Daughters The portrait of a fascinating, eccentric, and indomitable woman . . . an incandescent novel * Elle * No author has yet captured Frida's tragic life in words as sensually and passionately as this * Grazia * Claire Berest writes as captivatingly and vividly as Frida Kahlo painted * Paris Match * [Berest] recounts the passion, art and torment of this long-suffering painter, a magician of colours and priestess of liberated femininity * Les Inrocks *