Biography, literature & literary studies

A biography as unconventional and surprising as the life it tells. Admirers called her a genius, sceptics a charlatan. Gertrude Stein remains one of the most confounding – and contested – writers of the 20th century. The host of glamorous salons at 27 rue de Fleurus, brushing shoulders with Picasso and Hemingway in her long brown robe, Stein never ceased plotting her own legacy. She would be known as the literary innovator of her time. And her enigmatic partner, Alice B. Toklas, would make sure of it.