Previewing ‘George Sands: True Genius, True Woman’ — Out Now From SelfMadeHero
by Richard Bruton
The latest in SelfMadeHero‘s always worth taking a look at graphic biographies shines a light on female novelist George Sand.
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George Sand: True Genius, True Woman, written by Séverine Vidal and illustrated by Kim Consigny, is a graphic biography of female novelist George Sand, another fascinating, trailblazing woman of the 19th Century whose life and work championed women’s rights, gender expression, and sexual liberation.
The title ‘True Genius, True Woman‘ comes from the quote from English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, acknowledging her French contemporary and fellow champion of social reform.
The latest in SelfMadeHero’s increasingly large but always excellent series of graphic biographies, following Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie, Alice Guy: First Lady of Film, Josephine Baker and Kiki de Montparnasse, this is another great looking book on a perhaps lesser-known but hugely important figure in 19th Century literature and social reform.
Here’s SMH’s PR for this one…
“A scrupulously researched and tenderly revealing biography of one of the great pioneering figures of 19th-century French literature. Born in 1804 – at a time when women were deprived of their civil rights (along with minors, criminals, and the insane) – Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin grew up to defy those norms, both in her life and her writing.
Adopting the gender-neutral pen-name George Sand, and in a career lasting over forty years as a novelist and playwright, she is best remembered today for the affairs and friendships she enjoyed with men: the composer Chopin; the painter Delacroix; the novelist Balzac.
But this moving biographical portrait, written by Séverine Vidal and illustrated by Kim Consigny, restores her to the centre-stage she always commanded in her lifetime. Not just as the daring, scandalously cross-dressing, bisexual, cigarette-smoking divorcée novelist, but as the brilliant chronicler of her changing time – and therefore of ours.”
George Sand – True Genius, True Woman
Written by Séverine Vidal
Illustrated by Kim Consigny
Translation by Edward Gauvin
Published by SelfMadeHero on 23 May 2024 (UK) and 16 July 2024 (US)
