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London Review of Books

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Diana Souhami

  • Loving Picasso: The Private Journal of Fernande Olivier edited by Marilyn McCully, translated by Christine Baker

Fernande Olivier, like Frank Wedekind’s Lulu, sexualised all her relationships with men and served their desires while lamenting that her own were unfulfilled. She lived through her lovers in order perhaps to gain a passing sense of who she was. As each of her affairs in turn went wrong, she moved to a different man. This was a pattern she repeated until late middle age. Then she made do on her own.

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Diana Souhami is the author of Gluck, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall and Selkirk’s Island.