A Stranger in Bloomsbury (Hardback)
The Autobiography of Mattei Radev
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The untold story of Mattei Radev, from Bulgarian émigrée to Bloomsbury insider
E.M. Forster. Duncan Grant. Eddy Sackville-West. Painting in the sun in an idyllic artist commune; croquet on the lawn and fine wine with lunch. It was the mid-1950s; Britain had 'never had it so good.' These were the boys of the Bloomsbury Group: writers and artists who indelibly shaped British cultural life.
Into this circle appeared Mattei Radev: a stowaway and an unknown, a refugee from Communist Bulgaria. He started life in London as a hospital orderly; he ended it a celebrated framer with work in the most famous galleries in the world.
Intimate and tender, this is a spellbinding portrait of London's midcentury bohemia and an outsider's pursuit of friendship, freedom - and a room to call his own.
A Stranger in Bloomsbury (Ebook)
The Autobiography of Mattei Radev
Preorder from
The untold story of Mattei Radev, from Bulgarian émigrée to Bloomsbury insider
E.M. Forster. Duncan Grant. Eddy Sackville-West. Painting in the sun in an idyllic artist commune; croquet on the lawn and fine wine with lunch. It was the mid-1950s; Britain had 'never had it so good.' These were the boys of the Bloomsbury Group: writers and artists who indelibly shaped British cultural life.
Into this circle appeared Mattei Radev: a stowaway and an unknown, a refugee from Communist Bulgaria. He started life in London as a hospital orderly; he ended it a celebrated framer with work in the most famous galleries in the world.
Intimate and tender, this is a spellbinding portrait of London's midcentury bohemia and an outsider's pursuit of friendship, freedom - and a room to call his own.
Reviews for A Stranger in Bloomsbury
Francesca Wade, author of SQUARE HAUNTING
Neil Bartlett, author of THE DISAPPEARANCE BOY
Susan Owens, author of THE STORY OF DRAWING
Penelope Lively, author of HEAT WAVE
The Bookseller
Norman Coates
Norman Coates is a writer, painter and theatre designer. The life partner of Mattei Radev, he is the custodian of the Radev Collection, an art collection built up over three generations by Radev, Eardley Knollys and Edward Sackville-West. He lives in Bloomsbury.