An original story; fresh and realistic. It is a book about topical issues in Nigerian marriages, culture clashes, childlessness, pride and humility, grief and pain, love and joy, politics, the diverse forms of religion inherent in Nigeria. It is a book about qualities and values which transcend culture, ethnicity. A book about profound nature of an African thriving in the midst of adversity. The Triumph of the Water Lily is a celebration of womanhood. It is a moving exploration of life and death, in which Effua, the narrator, tells of a passionate story of trial and tribulation, of the triumph of love and life, even in the throes of death. The novel attests to the nobility, elegance and profound goodness of Nkem, the central character. It is also a courageous story of romance filled with excitement, novelty and moments of shock, particularly for Effua, whose life has been inexorably influenced by Nkem's.

"In 1928, the former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau published Claude Monet : les nymphéas (The water-lilies), a memoir of his longtime friend. Bruce Michelson has produced a new English translation, presented here with useful notes and illustrations. Michelson's translations of three short essays on art by Clemenceau, originally published by La justice in the late XIX c., are included as appendices"--

From the author of the "wonderfully ingenious" (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review) novel After the Crash, a thrilling tale of a murder that takes place in Claude Monet's garden and the mystery that surrounds it. Giverny, France. During the day, the town is the home of the famous artist Claude Monet and the gardens where he painted his Water Lilies. But once the tourists have gone, there is a darker side to the peaceful French village. This is the story of thirteen days that begin with one murder and end with another. Jéme Morval, a man whose passion for art was matched only by his passion for women, has been found dead in the stream that runs through the gardens. In his pocket is a postcard of Monet's Water Lilies with the words: Eleven years old. Happy Birthday. Entangled in the mystery are three women: a young painting prodigy, the seductive village schoolteacher, and an old widow who watches over the village from a mill by the stream. All three of them share a secret. But what do they know about the discovery of Jéme Morval's corpse? And what is the connection to the mysterious, rumored painting of Black Water Lilies?

Claude Monet's water lily paintings are among the most iconic and beloved works of art of the past century. Yet these entrancing images were created at a time of terrible private turmoil and sadness for the artist. The dramatic history behind these paintings is little known; Ross King's Mad Enchantment tells the full story for the first time and, in the process, presents a compelling and original portrait of one of our most popular and cherished artists. By the outbreak of war in 1914, Monet, then in his mid-seventies, was one of the world's most famous and successful painters, with a large house in the country, a fleet of automobiles and a colossal reputation. However, he had virtually given up painting following the death of his wife Alice in 1911 and the onset of blindness a year later. Nonetheless, it was during this period of sorrow, ill health and creative uncertainty that – as the guns roared on the Western Front – he began the most demanding and innovative paintings he had ever attempted. Encouraged by close friends such as Georges Clemenceau, France's dauntless prime minister, Monet would work on these magnificent paintings throughout the war years and then for the rest of his life. So obsessed with his monumental task that the village barber was summoned to clip his hair as he worked beside his pond, he covered hundreds of yards of canvas with shimmering layers of pigment. As his ambitions expanded with his paintings, he began planning what he intended to be his legacy to the world: the 'Musée Claude Monet' in the Orangerie in Paris. Drawing on letters and memoirs and focusing on this remarkable period in the artist's life, Mad Enchantment gives an intimate portrayal of Claude Monet in all his tumultuous complexity, and firmly places his water lily paintings among the greatest achievements in the history of art.

Commentary and reproductions of Monet's works that include 65 color plates, (36 with fold-out pages for added width), and 20 black and white illustrations.

Monet was the most typical and the most individual Impressionist painter. But while the painter was faithful and persevering in the pursuit of his motifs, his personal life followed a more restless course. Parisian by birth, he discovered painting as a youth in the provinces, where one of his homes, Argenteuil, has come to represent the artistic flowering and official establishment of Impressionism as a movement.