Camille de Peretti in Conversation with Ben Faccini on Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of an Unknown Woman

Wed 17 June

Camille de Peretti discusses Portrait of an Unknown Woman, the story of a painting by Gustav Klimt that was lost, repainted, stolen, and ultimately found intact in a rubbish bag. In conversation with Ben Faccini, author of Other People’s Children, she reimagines the life behind the portrait. The book moves across time and place, following the traces of a woman who slipped out of history and into fiction.

From the streets of Vienna in 1900 to Texas in the 1980s, and from Manhattan during the Great Depression to contemporary Italy, de Peretti imagines the destiny of this young woman as well as that of her descendants, and creates a masterful fresco that intertwines family secrets, disappearances, and thwarted loves.

L’Inconnu du portrait (Calmann-Lévy, 2024) was translated into English by Hildegarde Serle as Portrait of an Unknown Woman, and published by Europa Editions UK.

Ben Faccini’s novel Other People’s Children (Granta, 2026) blends families and inherited histories, described by the Financial Times as “an accomplished tale of families, biological or blended”.

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About our guests

Camille de Peretti

Camille de Peretti published Thornytorinx in 2005, which received the First Novel Prize at the Chambéry Festival. Her ninth novel, Portrait of an Unknown Woman, has been showered with literary prizes, including the Prix des Romancières, the Prix du roman Marie Claire, the Prix Maison de la Presse, and has been translated into some twenty countries. For the past fifteen years, Camille de Peretti has led writing workshops and given lectures around the world, sharing her passion for art and literature.

 

Ben Faccini

Ben Faccini was born in England and brought up in rural France and Italy. He worked for many years for the UNESCO in Paris. He is the author The Water-Breather (Flamingo 2002), The Incomplete Husband (Portobello 2007), and more recently Other People's Children (Granta, 2026). As well as novels, he has written extensively on issues in the developing world, particularly about streets and working children and innovations in education. Apart from his writing skills, Ben Faccini is a translator. He has translated into English novels such as Lydie Salvayre’s Pas pleurer (as Cry, Mother Spain), Mahi Binebine’s Le Fou du Roi (as The King’s Fool), and Clara Dupont-Monod’s S’Adapter (as And the Stones Cry Out).

 

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