I am Venus: A Novel

In this breathtaking historical novel by the acclaimed author of the bestselling Frida, Bárbara Mujica reimagines the dramatic life and loves of the Baroque Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. Narrated by the mysterious model who posed for The Toilet of Venus, his only surviving female nude, I Am Venus is the riveting account of a great artist’s rise to prominence, set against the backdrop of political turmoil and romantic scandal. The year is 1619, and Diego Velázquez is a rising star at an art academy in Seville run by his father-in-law. But even as his young wife builds him a family, the painter yearns for a larger canvas, and soon his ambition lands him at the court of King Philip IV, where he quickly gains prominence, just as Spain is plunged into military defeat and domestic chaos.