One of the top-selling female artists in the world, Marlene Dumas is a young painter whose works deal with the cycle of life as well as issues of gender, sexuality, pleasure, and pain. This is an intimate look at her life--and the intellectual, ethical, and moral questions that stimulate and absorb her--as well as a comprehensive catalog of her drawings and paintings. Essays by prominent South African artists and her curator shed light on Dumas as a person as well as her creative work and its perception in the art world.