Lewis DeSoto was born in South Africa and studied at what is now the Emily Carr College of Art. His paintings have been widely exhibited across Canada. His acclaimed novel, A Blade of Grass, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize. He lives with his wife in Normandy and Toronto.

Mad, bad, and dangerous to know is how Victorian society dismissed Emily Carr. Lewis DeSoto, a painter and novelist, sees Emily Carr as a woman in search of God, freedom, and the essence of art. Her quest to be an independent woman and a modern artist takes her from the studios of Paris to deep inside the remote Native villages of the West Coast forests. It is a lifetime journey of almost mythic proportions in which she struggles to define not only herself but also her country. A creator of extraordinary power, a seeker of mystical truth, a woman of unusual courage, Carr is revealed as one of those unique individuals who articulate the symbols and images by which Canada knows itself.