Rights sold to : Croatia (Sareni Ducan), Czech Republic (Metafora), Lithuania (Versus Aureus), Russia (Azbooka), Slovenia (Koda), Spain (El Acantilado)
In Ma vie, the only book he ever wrote, Marc Chagall recounts his childhood, his youth and his years of apprenticeship until 1922. Born in Witebsk, a city that never stops haunting him, he grows up in the Jewish quarter with his father who pickles herring and his minuscule mother. Very soon, the young Chagall’s talent for drawing becomes obvious. He goes off to Moscow to study, then to France, then returns to Witebsk before finally settling down in Paris with his young wife Bella and their baby.
His book resembles his paintings: strange, aerial characters outside of time are depicted alongside very realistic ones who are both moving and funny: the rabbi, the grandfather, the little fiancée, the neighbours, the other painters and in the background: Lenin, Lunacharsky, Trotsky…
Born in Witebsk in 1887 in a Jewish family of nine children, Chagall arrived in Paris and became part of the “Ruche” in 1911, where he met Modigliani, Delaunay, Cendrars and Apollinaire, among others. After escaping to New York from 1941 to 1948, he returned to France where he worked without interruption until his death in 1985, in Saint-Paul de Vence.