Painting Time

As she has so often done, de Kerangal shows there is poetry to be found in our jargon, and stories embedded in our tools . . . This is writing that defies haste, that slows the eye. It is also a mighty feat of translation . . . Cements [de Kerangal's] reputation as one of contemporary fiction's most gifted sentence builders -- Beejay Silcox * Guardian *
The book is a joyful testament to the rigours of research, and to the translator's art too . . . Maylis de Kerangal is mining a rich and individual seam -- Jonathan Gibbs * TLS *
Intensely alive, encompassing both the technical and the poetic, emotion and cerebrality -- Raphaëlle Leyris * Le Monde *
Always brilliant, executed in flowing, lyrical prose that had already reached the firmament in [Mend the Living] . . . De Kerangal finds fiction in reality; precise, technical vocabulary is imbued with rich imagination and meaning. And mastering trompe-l'œil - isn't that the ideal metaphor for the work of a novelist? -- Frédérique Roussel * Libération *
The art of painting in perfect harmony with de Kerangal's writing; visual, flamboyant, assured . . . in perfect alignment with her subject -- Marine Landrot * Télérama *

Kerangal's elegant, sexy, subtly Proustian, and fluidly dimensional drama of discipline and passion, imitation and
imagination is resplendently evocative and exhilarating.

-- Donna Seaman * Booklist *
Long looping sentences, beautifully translated from the French by Jessica Moore, are balanced by taut scene changes . . . De Kerangal conjures the same painterly realism that her characters hope to achieve in paint * London Magazine *