Portrait of an Unknown Lady

Mar 30, 2026 8:56 AM

Author:Maria Gainza,Thomas Bunstead

In this dazzling story of art and illusion, secrets and schemes, who is to be trusted - and what is real?

From the internationally acclaimed author of Optic Nerve

*A TLS Book of the Year*

'A writer who feels immediately important' Observer

At a hotel in Buenos Aires, a woman checks in under a pseudonym. She wears a black fur shawl and has no luggage. She is alone.

Over the coming days and nights, she tells a story, which begins with a secret shared in a local bath house, revealing art forgery and fraud on a dazzling scale. At its heart is an enigmatic genius who for years forged portraits of the city's elite, before disappearing without trace. It is a story of influence and intrigue, in which nothing is as it seems. We're not to expect 'names, numbers or dates', she cautions, but a more subtle kind of reckoning...

Told in a mordant, irresistible voice and full of sharp surprises, Portrait of an Unknown Lady is a captivating enquiry into what we mean by 'authenticity', in life as in art. At once poised and capricious, elegant and bold, it is a thrilling exploration of the relationships between what is lived, what is told, what is remembered, and what is real.

Translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead

Reviews

'Vividly detailed and saturated with intricate feeling, Gainza's novel is an engrossing exploration of authenticity, obsession, and the enveloping allure of art'

—— Alexandra Kleeman, author of SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

This is a truly exquisite novel... It is moving, clever and written wry precision... As much as the narrator is haunted, the reader will be haunted

—— Stuart Kelly , Scotland on Sunday

Gainza weaves a fascinating, often confounding story about beauty, obsession and authenticity... Gainza is sharp, modern and playful, a writer who multiples the possibilities of fiction

—— Johanna Thomas-Corr , Observer

A richly detailed detective novel of sorts that explores authenticity and the distance between the way things appear and they way they really are

—— Chiara Rimella , Monocle

Dazzling... [a] clever novel that explores the gap between what's remembered and what's real

—— Chloë Ashby , Spectator

[A] dazzling novel about art and authenticity... the novel packs a huge amount into its 208 pages. If the reader is never quite sure what's fact and what's fiction, that's just part of the fun

—— John Self , Guardian

Wonderful... Gainza is fast becoming one of Argentina's most sophisticated writers thanks to the imaginative twirls her writing takes

—— Times Literary Supplement

A delight

—— Scotsman, *Summer Reads of 2022*

Unsettling, super-sophisticated games with the unsaid and unsayable

—— Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*

An enjoyable, feelgood read

—— Daily Mirror

If you're after a heart-warming book filled to the brim with hope and humanity, then Julietta Henderson's charming The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman should be your next read . . . A life-affirming tale.

—— CultureFly

Norman Foreman will capture your heart. His story had me in tears, both of laughter and sorrow, as he bravely battles against the odds to achieve his dream. The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman is a book full of hope, humour and kindness, with one of the most endearing central characters I've met in a long time. An utter delight!

—— Sarah Haywood, bestselling author of THE CACTUS

Charming, warm, and uplifting... Julietta Henderson's quirky, lovable characters also offer profound meditations on family, friendship, grief, disability, illness, and aging, all told with heart, humor, and wisdom. There is so much to love about this book.

—— Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS

The most timely, urgent book of 2022... It feels both as thrillingly inventive as [Heti's] ever been and also defiantly and satisfyingly middle-aged... Genius.

—— Lynn Steger Strong , Los Angeles Times

Pure Colour is unabashedly metaphysical and completely outlandish...Yet neither grief nor theology can suppress Heti's oddball wit and affection for wildly inappropriate sexual metaphors, for which a reader should be grateful... Heti is the rare mystic with a sense of humor.

—— Judith Shulevitz , The Atlantic

Sheila Heti has the innate ability to capture feelings and thinkings that can seem so mercurial, and to provoke new avenues of thought on social codes, with challenge, care, and clarity. Her writing is both a relief and an invigoration.

—— Anna Cafolla , AnOther, *Books to Look Out For 2022*

Pure Colour will make you question life and choices in the same philosophical and lyrically written way.

—— Alice Snape , Cosmopolitan, *Books to Look Our For 2022*

Heti has evolved the leanest, more powerful, playful, and entirely unique form for writing ideas. With one foot in the everyday and another in the floating world, Pure Colour is a pure feat.

—— Joanna Walsh

Pure Colour...[is] a honed gem, a surreal bildungsroman... With its philosophical meditations, poetic vignettes and absurdist comedy, it is...a bracing reminder that the novel is the literary form where a writer is free to do anything... Heti...[is] an original and influential voice in contemporary fiction

—— Max Liu , i

Heti's... writing is beguiling, funny and wise. The novel's surreal elements invite as many interpretations as an abstract painting

—— Alastair Curtis , Prospect

Heti's work is always original - that Pure Colour is also deeply moving makes it all the more remarkable

—— New Statesman, *The best books of 2022 so far*

Compelling

—— Emily Witt , London Review of Books

A philosophical novel as timely as the fictions of Camus and Hesse were for another generation. Heti's voice, however, is entirely her own: bold, searching, hilarious, simultaneously artful and artless... her grandest...novel yet

—— Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*

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