The Goldkorn Variations

The Goldkorn Variations collects in one definitive volume, with a new afterword by the author, three previously published novels (originally from E.P. Dutton and Norton presses) about an aged European flautist, his music and his loves, from childhood to age one hundred and four. The author, Leslie Epstein, introduced Leib Goldkorn in his novella The Steinway Quintet which received the American Academy of Arts and Letters' award for Distinguished Achievement in Literature, later expanded as one of three tales collected in the first of these volumes, and which spawned what came to be known as Goldkorniana. The illustration by Pablo Picasso, "Scáene Erotique II 02-08-1962," 1962, appearing on the cover of The Goldkorn Variations courtesy of the Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), and the Pace Gallery, is one which the author, Leslie Epstein feels "particularly captures the undying energy of a man who never seems to grow old—in that sense, perhaps, Leib Goldkorn is like Picasso himself."

Leslie Epstein was born in Los Angeles to a family of film makers—his father and uncle co-wrote dozens of films including The Man who Came to Dinner, Arsenic and Old Lace, Strawberry Blonde, Yankee Doodle Dandy and  Casablanca—and films make up much of the subject matter of his fiction. He earned an undergraduate degree at Yale and a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. He is the author of Hill of Beans: A Novel of War and Celluloid,  P.D. Kimerakov,  The Steinway Quintet Plus Four,  Regina,  Goldkorn Tales,  Pinto and Sons,  Pandaemonium,  Ice Fire Water: A Leib Goldkorn Cocktail,  San Remo Drive, and  The Eighth Wonder of the World. His novel  King of the Jews, a classic of Holocaust Fiction, was published in eleven foreign languages; his stage adaptation was produced by the Huntington Theatre Company and the Olney Theatre. He's received Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships, an award for Distinction in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a residency at the Rockefeller Institute at Bellagio, and grants from the Ingram Merrill Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Director of the Creative Writing Program at Boston University for over thirty years, he currently teaches fiction.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso (born October 25, 1881 in Málaga, Spain died April 08, 1973 in Mougins, France), often referred to simply as Picasso, was a Spanish School of Paris painter, sculptor, etcher, lithographer, ceramist and designer, whose influence on 20th century art is unparalleled. The full name recorded on his birth certificate and baptismal record, incorporating names of saints and family members,  is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y Picasso. One of the most recognized figures in 20th century art, he is best known as the co-founder, along with Georges Braque, of cubism. The illustration by Pablo Picasso, "Scène Erotique II 02-08-1962," 1962, appears on the cover of THE GOLDKORN VARIATIONS courtesy of the Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), and the Pace Gallery.