This moving novel tells the tumultuous story of Tina Modotti, an Italian refugee to the United States who initially gained attention as a Hollywood actress. Brilliant, beautiful, fiery, and promiscuous, Modotti modeled for and lived with photographer Edward Weston in Mexico in the 1920s. An accomplished photographer herself, she became a militant member of the Mexican Communist Party. When Modotti was accused of the murder of her Cuban lover, the Mexican press had a field day, publishing nude photographs of her along with sensational stories about her various love affairs. Eventually she fled to the U.S.S.R. and then to Europe, where she became a secret agent and a nurse under an assumed name, returning to Mexico to meet an early death at the age of forty-five. Capturing with great sensitivity Modotti's sensuality, spirit, and conviction this extraordinary recreation of a remarkable life is a tightly woven blend of fact and fiction from "one of Mexico's leading literary figures." -The New York Times Book Review • Author is Mexico's preeminent woman of letters • Modotti's work has been the subject of major museum retrospectives around the country