Diego et Frida

Diego et Frida is a biography of Mexican painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio. It was originally published in French in 1993.

Diego et Frida

First edition
Author	J. M. G. Le Clézio
Cover artist	Frida Kahlo, Frieda and Diego Rivera - 1931
Language	French
Series	Échanges
Genre	Biography
Publisher	Éditions Stock
Publication date	1993
Publication place	France
Pages	237
ISBN	978-2-234-02617-9
OCLC	29553840
Dewey Decimal	759.972 B 20
LC Class	ND259.R5 L4 1993

Diego et Frida occupies a special place in Le Clézio's creative output: it is the only story that the writer devotes completely to artists.

The cover art includes Kahlo's 1931 painting Frieda and Diego Rivera.

Plot

When Frida announces her intention to marry Diego Rivera, her father makes an acerbic comment: "It will be the wedding of an elephant and a dove." The news of this turbulent yet fragile woman's marriage to the "genius" of Mexican muralists, who is twice her age, thrice her weight, reputed as an "ogre" and a seducer, is met with skepticism. Rivera is an atheist communist who dares to paint frescoes glorifying Indigenous people, encouraging workers to arm themselves against Mexico’s "demonic trinity" – the priest, the bourgeois, and the lawyer.^[1]

Diego et Frida tells the story of an extraordinary couple: their encounter, Diego’s complex past, and Frida’s experience with pain and loneliness. It explores their shared faith in revolution, meetings with Leon Trotsky and André Breton, their American adventure, and Diego's surprising fascination with Henry Ford. Together, they renew the world of art.^[2]