PREREKANJA (Talking It Over)

A new theatre adaptation of Julian Barnes's novel Talking It Over will open in Slovenia on 23 November 2007. Directed by Boris Cavazza, the production is being undertaken by the Slovene National Theatre Drama Ljubljana.

For more information, please visit the theatre website

Swiss Artist Félix Vallotton

"Better with their clothes on." The Guardian, 3 November 2007 [On Swiss artist Félix Vallotton]; Also published in Die Weltwoche, n. 42, 18 October 2007: 52-57.

From the Essay:

"When I was teaching [at Johns Hopkins University] a dozen years ago, I used to call in at the [Baltimore Museum of Art] between classes. At first, Matisse and the other big names occupied me, but over the weeks the picture I would find myself standing most faithfully in front of was a small, intense oil by the Swiss artist Félix Vallotton. The Lie had been painted in 1897 and bought 30 years later by Etta Cone from Félix's art-dealing brother Paul in Lausanne. It cost her 800 Swiss francs - little more than small change, given that on the same day, and from the same source, she bought a Degas pastel for 20,000 francs."

Félix Vallotton: An Idyll at the Edge is at the Kunsthaus, Zurich, until January 18, and at the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, from February 15 to May 18 2008. Visit the Baltimore Museum of ArtWebsite.

Nothing to Be Frightened of -- New Book by Barnes

‘I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.’ Julian Barnes’ new book is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and a homage to the French writer Jules Renard. Though he warns us that ‘this is not my autobiography’, the result is like a tour of the mind of one of our most brilliant writers.

When Angela Carter reviewed Barnes’s first novel, Metroland, she praised the mature way he wrote about death. Now, nearly thirty years later, he returns to the subject in a wise , funny and constantly surprising book, which defies category and classification – except as Barnesian.

Publication date: March 2008 • 256 pages • Demy Octavo • EAN: 9780224085236

Order a copy online via Random House, Amazon.co.uk or one of a number of local independent booksellers.