# Optic Nerve - Paperback

by **Maria Gainza** (Author), **Thomas Bunstead** (Translator)

**"In this delightful autofiction―the first book by Gainza, an Argentine art critic, to appear in English―a woman delivers pithy assessments of world-class painters along with glimpses of her life, braiding the two into an illuminating whole." ―_The New York Times Book Review_, Notable Book of the Year and Editors' Choice**

The narrator of _Optic Nerve_ is an Argentinian woman whose obsession is art. The story of her life is the story of the paintings, and painters, who matter to her. Her intimate, digressive voice guides us through a gallery of moments that have touched her.

In these pages, El Greco visits the Sistine Chapel and is appalled by Michelangelo's bodies. The mystery of Rothko's refusal to finish murals for the Seagram Building in New York is blended with the story of a hospital in which a prostitute walks the halls while the narrator's husband receives chemotherapy. Alfred de Dreux visits Géricault's workshop; Gustave Courbet's devilish seascapes incite viewers "to have sex, or to eat an apple"; Picasso organizes a cruel banquet in Rousseau's honor . . . All of these fascinating episodes in art history interact with the narrator's life in Buenos Aires―her family and work; her loves and losses; her infatuations and disappointments. The effect is of a character refracted by environment, composed by the canvases she studies.

Seductive and capricious, _Optic Nerve_ marks the English-language debut of a major Argentinian writer. It is a book that captures, like no other, the mysterious connections between a work of art and the person who perceives it.

### Author Biography

**María Gainza** was born in Buenos Aires, where she still resides. She has worked as a correspondent for _The New York Times_ in Argentina, as well as for _ARTnews_. She has also been a contributor to _Artforum_, _The Buenos Aires Review_, and _Radar_, the cultural supplement from Argentine newspaper _Página/12_. She is coeditor of the collection _Los Sentidos_ (_The Senses_) on Argentinean art, and in 2011 she published _Textos elegidos_ (_Selected Texts_), a collection of her notes and essays on contemporary art. _Optic Nerve_ is her first work of fiction and her first book to be translated into English.

**Thomas Bunstead** is a writer and translator based in East Sussex, England. He has translated some of the leading Spanish-language writers working today, including Eduardo Halfon, Yuri Herrera, Agustín Fernández Mallo, and Enrique Vila-Matas, and his own writing has appeared in publications such as _Kill Author_, _The White Review_, and _The Times Literary Supplement_. He is an editor at the translation journal _In Other Words_.

**Number of Pages:** 208

**Dimensions:** 0.6 x 8.2 x 5.4 IN

**Publication Date:** April 21, 2020

## Details

- **Price:** 16.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 16.95 USD | In stock |

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- Optic Nerve - Paperback

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