Mitz

An intimate portrait of the life and marriage of Leonard and Virginia Woolf - and their pet marmoset monkey called Mitz - from the National Book Award-winning author of THE FRIEND

''A perfect little gem of a book'' NIGEL NICOLSON

''Nunez takes us beneath the surface to the essential mysteries of the human heart'' WALL STREET JOURNAL

In 1934, a ''sickly pathetic marmoset'' came into the care of Leonard Woolf. After he nursed her back to health, Mitz became a ubiquitous presence in Bloomsbury society. Moving with Leonard and Virginia Woolf between London and Sussex, she developed her own special relationship with each of them, as well as with their cocker spaniels - and with various members of the Woolfs'' circle, among them T. S. Eliot and Vita Sackville-West.

This tender and imaginative mock biography offers a striking look at the lives of writers and artists shadowed by war, death, and mental breakdown, and at the solace and amusement inspired by its tiny subject.

''A wry, supremely intelligent literary gem about devotion - to writing, to other people, and between humans and their pets'' NPR

''At its very best the book takes on the edginess of Mrs. Dalloway'' CHICAGO TRIBUNE

''In plumbing the mysterious affections between species, it comes to represent the solace and fragility of human relations more generally'' PARIS REVIEW

Winner of the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters