My kind of travel memoir where the personal intertwines with travel, art, and politics.
It’s a short book that I feel like anyone would enjoy, but my heightened interest in Siena (regret not going whilst in Tuscany recently), and the exploration of Sienese art is like catnip to me.
Premise: Hisham has always wanted to come to Siena to explore the Sienese School art he’s so captivated by (13th-15th century). His sensitivity at exploring these religious works is astounding, but it’s not an art history book. It’s about encounters, meandering, the disorientation of travel.
And at the same time it’s about grief, ageing, his father’s disappearance, and the displacement of his family from Libya who have had to make lives elsewhere: in his case, in the US and London.
The encounters, the honesty, the details.
I loved it.
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