Louisa Treger Suzi Feay

Novelist Louisa Treger talks about her fictionalised account of the love affair between Pablo Picasso and the French photographer, painter and poet Dora Maar.

Maar is drawn to Picasso’s volcanic creativity and an affair develops in 1936. The story switches between Paris and the French Riviera. Treger portrays Picasso as a genius who sidestepped the normal rules of human relationships. He refuses to divorce his wife and embarks on affairs with Maar’s friends. The Spanish civil war depresses Picasso and makes him violent. Maar documents his painting Guernica, and, as the Nazis invade France, a darkness descends on her too.

‘As a novel, The Paris Muse is hard to put down: as a testament to Dora Maar’s artistry, it is galvanizing and hugely compelling. So vivid and compelling is Treger’s dialogue and scene-setting that you feel you could pull a stool up to their table and join the conversation. Louisa Treger really knows how to work the genre so that readers of The Paris Muse are both reliably informed and unceasingly gripped’ New York Observer

Treger is author three previous novels, The Lodger, The Dragon Lady and Madwoman. Here she talks to journalist and reviewer for the FT Suzi Feay.