Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury

Sigrid Nunez

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An intimate portrait of the life and marriage of Leonard and Virginia Woolf - and their pet marmoset monkey called Mitz - from the National Book Award-winning author of THE FRIEND

'A perfect little gem of a book' NIGEL NICOLSON

'Nunez takes us beneath the surface to the essential mysteries of the human heart' WALL STREET JOURNAL

In 1934, a 'sickly pathetic marmoset' came into the care of Leonard Woolf. After he nursed her back to health, Mitz became a ubiquitous presence in Bloomsbury society. Moving with Leonard and Virginia Woolf between London and Sussex, she developed her own special relationship with each of them, as well as with their cocker spaniels - and with various members of the Woolfs' circle, among them T. S. Eliot and Vita Sackville-West.

This tender and imaginative mock biography offers a striking look at the lives of writers and artists shadowed by war, death, and mental breakdown, and at the solace and amusement inspired by its tiny subject.

'A wry, supremely intelligent literary gem about devotion - to writing, to other people, and between humans and their pets' NPR

'At its very best the book takes on the edginess of Mrs. Dalloway' CHICAGO TRIBUNE

'In plumbing the mysterious affections between species, it comes to represent the solace and fragility of human relations more generally' PARIS REVIEW

Winner of the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters

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Praise for Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury

  • A wry, supremely intelligent literary gem about devotion - to writing, to other people, and between humans and their pets. Like The Friend, Mitz captures the heartrending downside of love and connection - loss. But it also reminds us, beautifully, of the "great solace and distraction" of literature - NPRIn short, glistening sentences that refract the larger world, Ms. Nunez describes the appealingly eccentric, fiercely intelligent Woolfs during a darkening time - Wall Street JournalMitz shimmers with an emotional truth missing from the most rigorous Bloomsbury histories - Village Voice

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Sigrid Nunez

Sigrid Nunez

Sigrid Nunez is the New York Times bestselling author of The Friend, winner of the 2018 National Book Award, and of seven other novels, including Salvation City, The Last of Her Kind, and What Are You Going Through. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Her books have been translated into over thirty languages.

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