Jay Griffiths Talks, Events, Courses: May 2012

A LOVE LETTER FROM A STRAY MOON

Jay Griffiths

To be published by Penguin as an e-book in June 2012

A Love Letter from a Stray Moon is a fictionalised portrait of the intense and prolific life of Frida Kahlo. It explores the artist’s childhood polio, her devastating accident and her turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera, a story of passion, grief and transcendence. Partly a poetic depiction of a woman in flight from the hollowness of childlessness, the burning of betrayal and the constraints of physical pain, A Love Letter from a Stray Moon is also a love letter to the earth and a celebration of the rebellion which protects it – from Frida’s own politics to the present-day Zapatistas. It is a hymn to the revolutionary fire at the heart of art.

*****

‘A rich and extraordinary vision. Jay Griffiths is a fearless adventurer with words and images. I salute her courage and the splendour of this vision’ Philip Pullman

‘Frida Kahlo’s life and work were indivisible, and with a power worthy of her subject Jay Griffiths has found a way of writing Kahlo’s broken, prolific life. Through Griffiths we hear the voice of Frida Kahlo herself, as if she were speaking directly to us. I devoured this wonderfully perceptive and sensitive book’ Marie Darrieussecq

‘Rich, honed and intense, a fierce, compelling homage’ The Age, Australia

‘An extraordinarily beautiful and sustained prose poem, a call for engagement with the world, and a powerful and astonishing feat of literary and retroactive telepathy. It is a book about possession, in many forms, each of which is sparked by a
particular urgency; to comprehend, to celebrate, and to endure’ Niall Griffiths

‘A stunning allegory about love, art, and revolution. She makes every word, every scene, in this passionate narrative count. It’s brilliant work’ Barry Lopez

‘The raw and erotic power of Kahlo’s voice takes centre stage. Jay Griffiths has created an extraordinary feat of imagination’ Weekend Press, New Zealand

‘A wonderful book. It’s like a dress that Kahlo invented for herself and wore’
John Berger

‘Kahlo’s inner voice soars on Griffiths’s metaphorical flourishes, applied carefully like the brushstrokes of Kahlo’s brightly pigmented self-portraits . . . a multilayered work which creates a vivid sense of Kahlo’s elliptical life’ Sun-Herald, Australia

‘A rapturous, crazy and gorgeous poem to art and to the human spirit. Griffiths’s novel reminds us what it is to be a human being, born native to the earth, on fire with the joy of the universe and full of grief for our broken world. It is a love song to life, to art and to the human spirit’ West Australian, Australia

‘Vivid as a bloom in the jungle, visionary as a flight over a desert, a love song to life on earth’ Joan London

‘A raw and confronting piece of poetic prose . . . a fearless adventurer of words, Griffiths is in great form’ Sunday Herald Sun, Australia

‘A love letter to human originality’ Melanie Challenger

‘A musical reverie, a tapestry of lyrical metaphor, a prose poem driven by heat and fury.’ Sunday Star Times

‘The book is both narrative and prose poem to revolution, uncensored minds and life lived as art. Griffiths’s fearless, untamed writing style is equal in measure to Kahlo’s brushstrokes. Griffiths’s writing is utterly original.’ Northern Rivers Echo

‘An act of poetic ventriloquy… Griffiths’s language is flowing, hyper-poetic’ The Sydney Morning Herald

‘I found in Griffiths’s writing a crafted freedom that feels made from the mist of dreams and a very real emerging dawn. Imagine being held in the open hand of moonlight and carried through a dream into day. This is what it is like to read A Love Letter from a Stray Moon. It is a book for men to read on women and for women to read on men. I am transported and transformed; I feel lucky to have read it and it leaves me in awe’ Lemn Sissay

*****

Friday, 11 May 2012

Talks

A Love Letter from a Stray Moon