A stunning work of memoir and an unforgettable depiction of the brilliance and madness by one of Surrealism''s most compelling figures In 1937 Leonora Carringtonlater to become one of the twentieth centurys great painters of the weird, the alarming, and the wildwas a nineteen-year-old art student in London, beautiful and unapologetically rebelliousAt a dinner party, she met the artist Max Ernst. The two fell in love and soon departed to live and paint together in a farmhouse in Provence.  In 1940, the invading German army arrested Ernst and sent him to a concentration camp. Carrington suffered a psychotic breakShe wept for hours. Her stomach becamethe mirror of the earthof all worlds in a hostile universeand she tried to purify the evil by compulsively vomiting. As the Germans neared the south of France, a friend persuaded Carrington to flee to Spain. Facing the approachof robots, of thoughtless, fleshless beings,she packed a suitcase that bore on a brass plate the word