Painter of Our Time (Pantheon modern writers)

In 1956 Janos Lavin, a Hungarian expatriate painter, disappeared from London without explanation just following his first public and commercial success. Only his diary was found, left behind in his studio by an art critic. The diary is the heart of the novel, and offers a powerful portrait of an artist at odds with his time. This is Berger's first novel, a sort of an artistic detective story.