In this collection of poems written in English and French parallel versions, Inge Israel evokes the life and work of Russian-born painter Chaim Soutine. Living and starving alongside his artist friends Modigliani, Chagall, Lipschitz and others on the Left Bank in the 1920s, Soutine was acclaimed by them as the expressionist par excellence. These poems penetrate his haunting yet strangely life-affirming work, reflecting the wildness, ecstasy and despair of the human condition.