Dali Dreams of Gala

By Eddy L. Barrows

Novella - Literary Historical Fiction / Surreal Romance / Where Obsession Becomes Art

In the twilight between madness and genius, a young Salvador Dal teeters on the edge of reality, haunted by a woman who does not exist-yet whom he cannot forget. She visits him in dreams and apparitions, a muse formed of longing and hallucination, a phantom lover who stirs his soul and torments his senses. He paints her obsessively, conjuring her from the aching recesses of his psyche onto canvas-always out of reach, always half-formed.

Dal Dreams of Gala is a rich, fictionalized reimagining of the Surrealist master's early years-a time of artistic revolution, ecstatic visions, and emotional desolation. As Dal wanders through a waking dreamscape-lunching with Joan Mir in a caf populated by waiters with drawers in their heads, enduring Picasso's crude philosophies in a studio pulsing with ego, and dining amid the peculiar domestic rituals of Ren and Georgette Magritte-he searches for something he cannot name but desperately craves.

That something-his salvation, his obsession-finally takes corporeal form in Elena Dimitrovna Eluard, better known as Gala: the enigmatic, sharp-tongued wife of poet Paul luard and the reigning Muse of the Surrealists. When Dal meets Gala at a volatile gathering of the Surrealist Group, the dream and the woman converge. What follows is an electric, legendary communion between artist and muse, a love forged in myth, madness, and creative fire-culminating in a tumultuous marriage that spans over half a century.

Visceral, dreamlike, and infused with historical resonance, Dal Dreams of Gala is an evocative meditation on desire, madness, and the sacred agony of love. This novella offers an intimate portrait of a man who gave himself to art, and the woman who made him whole-even if she first had to be imagined into existence.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 146093590X
• ISBN13: 9781460935903
• Release Date: May 2011
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 104 Pages
• Weight: 0.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.0" x 8.0"