This provocative reassessment of Frida Kahlo’s art and legacy presents a feminist analysis of the myths surrounding her. In the late 1970's, Frida Kahlo achieved cult heroine status. Her images were splashed across billboards, magazine ads, and postcards; fashion designers copied the so-called “Frida” look in hairstyles and dress; and “Fridamania” even extended to T-shirts, jewelry, and nail polish. Margaret A. Lindauer argues that this mass market assimilation of Kahlo's identity has detracted from appreciation of her work, leading to narrow interpretations based solely on her tumultuous life. Kahlo's political and feminist activism, her stormy marriage to fellow artist Diego Rivera, and her progressively debilitated body made for a life of emotional and physical upheaval. But Lindauer questions the “author-equals-the-work” critical tradition that assumes a “one-to-one association of life events to the meaning of a painting.” In Kahlo's case, such assumptions created a devouring mythology, an iconization that separates us from the real significance of the oeuvre. Accompanied by twenty-six illustrations and deep analysis of Kahlo's central themes, this provocative, semiotic study recontextualizes an important figure in art history. At the same time, it addresses key questions about the language of interpretation, the nature of veneration, and the truths within self-representation.

Sunlight on a Broken Column, first published in 1961, is an unforgettable coming-of-age story set against the turbulent background of Partition. 'The deftness with which Attia Hosain handles the interplay of manners, class, culture and different forms of female power is gorgeously done . . . Laila is such a remarkable heroine - sharp, spirited and passionate' - KAMILA SHAMSIE 'An extraordinary novel, with an extraordinary heroine. Laila - even from the confines of the women's quarters - is a sharp observer of the tumultuous politics, and the cultural, racial, and religious conflicts of the dying days of the Raj. There is such richness here, waiting to be rediscovered. And readers will fall in love with Laila' MONICA ALI 'My life changed. It had been restricted by invisible barriers almost as effectively as the physically restricted lives of my aunts in the zenana. A window had opened here, a door there, a curtain had been drawn aside; but outside lay a world narrowed by one's field of vision' Laila, orphaned daughter of a distinguished Muslim family, is brought up in her grandfather's traditional household by her aunts, who keep purdah. At fifteen she moves to the home of her 'liberal' but autocratic uncle in Lucknow. As the struggle for Independence sharpens, Laila is surrounded by relatives and university friends caught up in politics, but she is unable to commit herself to any cause: her own fight for independence is a struggle against tradition. With its stunning evocation of India, its political insight and unsentimental understanding of the human heart, Sunlight on a Broken Column is a classic of Muslim life. Attia Hosain published only two books, but her writing has influenced generations of writers. Discover Phoenix Fled, Hosain's acclaimed short-story collection, also published in Virago Modern Classics.

Compelling works by one of the 20th century's most provocative artists: The Broken Column, The Dead Dimas Rosas at the Age of Three, Self-Portrait with Monkey, and 13 others.

The painful, exquisite art of Mexico’s favourite artist was a product of immense physical pain, and an emotional tumultuous life. The new book features the range and power of her heavily autobiographical work, from the early, disturbing explorations of personal suffering to the more dulled, painkiller-drenched paintings of her later life.

Set in turn-of-the-century New York and Newport, Rhode Island, Catherine Rae's novel Sunlight on a Broken Column blends romance and suspense in the story of two sisters who take different paths upon the loss of their family fortune. After Caroline Slade's parents die suddenly in 1892, her father's debts force Caroline and her brother and sister to leave the family's New York City mansion. With the kind help of their elderly neighbor in the adjoining house, Caroline and her brother are able to complete their schooling, while their sister, Laurel, goes to New England in the hope of marrying well. When Lauren returns to New York in disgrace and impulsively marries for money, Caroline is caught in the middle as her new brother-in-law's strange, tormented behavior threatens to drive her sister away and throws the family into turmoil.

The emotional charge Surrealism extended to the objects of its encounter makes itself felt as at least philosophically erotic. This charged look determines the atmosphere around the Surrealist text and its encounters--in the world of art and the world it made into art. In this attempt to make sense of the way Surrealism sees, conceals, poses, and stares at its own self and the selves of others, the author examines the decors, games, portraits, transformations, and mirrorings that establish Surrealism's links to Baroque forms of representation.

A New York Times-bestselling author's personal examination of how the experiences, art, and disabilities of Frida Kahlo shaped her life as an amputee. At first sight of Frida Kahlo’s painting The Two Fridas, Emily Rapp Black felt a connection with the artist. An amputee from childhood, Rapp Black grew up with a succession of prosthetic limbs and learned that she had to hide her disability from the world. Kahlo sustained lifelong injuries after a horrific bus crash, and her right leg was eventually amputated. In Kahlo’s art, Rapp Black recognized her own life, from the numerous operations to the compulsion to create to silence pain. Here she tells her story of losing her infant son to Tay-Sachs, giving birth to a daughter, and learning to accept her body. She writes of how Frida Kahlo inspired her to find a way forward when all seemed lost. Book cover image: Frida Kahlo, prosthetic limb. Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera Archives. Bank of Mexico, Fiduciary in the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museum Trust.