Life with Picasso in Sinhala
Life with Picasso, co-authored by Francoise Gilot and Carlton Lake
created sensation when it came out in 1964 in America. It was atop the
best-seller list for more than six months since its time of publication.
Over one million hard cover copies of the English edition -the book has
been translated to Spanish, German and Italian in simultaneous with the
English edition-was sold within the first year.
 Life with Picasso is the fascinating account of Francoise - Picasso
ten year life together.
Picasso lost all the three lawsuits to stop the publication of the
book. Francoise Gilot is one of the many women companions of Pablo
Picasso who was the most prolific if not the most influential artist in
the 20th century. He was 61 years old and she was just 21when they
started their relationship in 1943. She lived with him for 10 years,
bore him two children and left him when she could not take any more of
his totalitarian ways and infidelities. But, unlike many of Picasso's
lovers Francoise did not live a 'Post-Picasso' life of misery and
loneliness or ended up with a tragic demise. She pursued her academic
studies and her career in art successfully. Today she is a professor in
Art and an internationally acclaimed artist.
The book reveals the inside of Picasso's personality as much as it
gives Gilot's personal perspective of Picasso and his art. It is also a
window to the social and cultural life in Paris during the World War 11,
the lives of several prominent avant-garde artistes at the time
revealing many interesting episodes in their lives and new techniques of
art discovered and evolved by them.
Life with Picasso has been translated into Sinhala by Malani
Govinnage, a bi-lingual journalist and translator who introduced Ignazio
Silone's Fontamara, Ernesto Che Guevara's Bolivian Diary and Alan
Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country among several other noted works from
the world literature to the Sinhala reader. Titled Mage Picasso, the
book is a publication of Wijesooriya Grantha Kendraya, Colombo 8.
Who is Picasso after all? The translator has given a short biography
of the artist in the last few pages. The foot-notes provide the reader
with much needed contextual information to enjoy the reading.
|
