Painting Time: A Novel

Named a most anticipated book of 2021 by The Guardian and The Millions

An aesthetic and existential coming-of-age novel exploring the apprenticeship of a young female painter.

In Maylis de Kerangal’s Painting Time, we are introduced to the burgeoning young artist Paula Karst, who is enrolled at the famous Institut de Peinture in Brussels. Unlike the friends she makes at school, Paula strives to understand the specifics of what she’s painting—replicating a wood’s essence or a marble’s wear req...