Since her death in 2011, the legendary Surrealist Leonora Carrington has been reconstructed and reinvented many times over. In this book, Gabriel Weisz Carrington draws on remembered conversations and events to demythologise his mother, revealing the woman and the artist behind the iconic persona.

He travels between Leonora's native England and adopted homeland of Mexico, making stops in New York and Paris and meeting some of the remarkable figures she associated with, from Max Ernst and Andr Breton to Remedios Varo and Alejandro Jodorowsky. At the same time, he strives to depict a complex and very real Surrealist creator, exploring Leonora not simply in relation to her romantic partners or social milieus but as the artist she always was.

A textured portrait emerges from conversations, memories, stories and Leonora's engagement with the books that she read.

'Gabriel Weisz Carrington's gentle, grieving memoir of his mother allows us a glimpse of their extraordinary life together in Mexico City. It is a life enchanted by art and anchored by love, a wild, irreverent love for all the world's creatures, passed on from mother to son, and now, from son to reader.' Merve Emre, Associate Professor of English, University of Oxford

'Gabriel Weisz Carrington's intense memoir of his mother explores her inner life as both artist and writer. He reveals the range of her experiments with the magical and the esoteric as well as her profound and sometimes dangerous quest to plumb the mysteries of manifest creation.' Marina Warner, writer and cultural historian

'To spend time with this book is to spend time with Leonora Carrington - a pure delight from start to finish.' Viktor Wynd, author of The UnNatural History Museum