Mad, bad, and dangerous to know is how Victorian society dismissed Emily Carr. Lewis DeSoto, a painter and novelist, sees Emily Carr as a woman in search of God, freedom, and the essence of art. Her quest to be an independent woman and a modern artist takes her from the studios of Paris to deep inside the remote Native villages of the West Coast forests. It is a lifetime journey of almost mythic proportions in which she struggles to define not only herself but also her country. A creator of extraordinary power, a seeker of mystical truth, a woman of unusual courage, Carr is revealed as one of those unique individuals who articulate the symbols and images by which Canada knows itself.

LEWIS DESOTO was born in South Africa and moved to Canada as a teenager. His first novel, A Blade Of Grass, was an international bestseller. Longlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, the novel was also a finalist for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. An artist as well as a writer, DeSoto authored a biography of the painter Emily Carr. He lives with his wife, the artist Gunilla Josephson, in Toronto and Normandy, France.

WEB: LEWISDESOTO.COM

Lewis Desoto's profile page