Anglo-Spanish author Susana Medina gives three lessons about three objects, which relate to three different identities and three stories. This audio slideshow explores and studies her relationship with objects in a similar fashion to Susana Medina's literature.
When Susana Medina speaks, her voluptuous lips resemble a place to rest. Salvador Dali’s powerful Mae West bocca sofa comes to mind. When Susana and I met earlier this year, we were discussing the power of objects, the main theme of her latest novel. The book is called Philosophical Toys and it's her debut novel written in English. The story explores and studies our relationship with objects, masterfully interspersed amid a plot that leads us to London, Spain and Mexico, while the reader discovers many engaging characters, some of whom are collectors of objects and inquire about the enigmatic nature of the things. Playfully concocted, her novel is both a celebration and critique of our relationship to objects from fetishes, to curios, to commodities, to objectum sexuality, to our becoming cyborgs through our addiction to technology.
"Susana Medina's writing displays a sense of elegant engagement with a minatory world, the prose is both spare and lush, and there's a commendable tension about the enterprise."
Will Self (novelist and journalist)
Susana Medina has written and published poetry, a novel, stories, essays and a cinematographic script. She has made two short films based on Philosophical Toys, Buñuel’s Philosophical Toys and Leather-bound Stories (co-directed with Derek Ogbourne), and received numerous awards, including the Max Aub International Short Story Prize. Other works include Red Tales (bilingual edition, co-translated with Rosie Marteau) and Souvenirs del Accidente. Her work is featured in Best European Fiction, 2014, Dalkey Archive Press. Born in Hampshire, England of a Spanish father and a German mother of Czech origin, she grew up in Valencia, Spain, and has lived in London since 1989. Susana's work is published by Dalkey Archive Press, a publisher of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism recently relocated to Texas in the United States, specializing in the publication or republication of lesser known, often avant-garde works, as well as major international authors in translation.
"A shockingly beautiful innovative voice in which the sublime and laughter are perfectly matched."
Andrew Gallix (editor-in-chief of 3:AM Magazine, writer and academic)
During February of this year, Susana and I recorded a podcast interview. We spoke of her writing, childhood, collectors of objects, Cinderella's lost slipper, superstition, animism, parallel universes, fashion, fetishism, social media, politics, biculturalism and cyborgs, among other subjects. The podcast can be heard by clicking on the link below:
The Susana Medina Podcast Interview
"Susana Medina is a genius!"
Deborah Levy (British playwright, novelist and poet)
Susana Medina's website
The novel entitled, Philosophical Toys by Susana Medina is published and sold by Dalkey Archive Press as well as Amazon and other good bookshops.
Derek Ogbourne's website
Reportage, Photography & Post-Production: Paul Louis Archer Photography
Audio slideshow music and sound design: Daniel Fisher & David Austin