Author(s): Leonora Carrington; Olga Tokarczuk (Afterword by)

FICTION

"It's an extraordinary surrealist tale - hilarious and terrifying - and one that everyone should read. I like surrealism and anarchism in art. I like provocations. Hers is a unique voice, full of light and gravitas at once, a truly revolutionary spirit. A bitter, dark sense of humor that perfectly suits our era, although this slim novel was published almost 50 years ago." -Olga Tokarkczuk, New York Times

"[O]ne of the great comic novels of the twentieth century, The Hearing Trumpet reads like a spectacular reassemblage of old and new genres, the campy, illegitimate offspring of Margaret Cavendish's romances and Robert Graves's histories, with Thomas Pynchon's riotous paranoia spliced in to keep it limber and receptive to the political anxieties of its moment." -Merve Emre, The New Yorker

One of the first things ninety-two-year-old Marian Leatherby overhears when she is given an ornate hearing trumpet is her family plotting to commit her to an institution. Soon, she finds herself trapped in a sinister retirement home, where the elderly must inhabit buildings shaped like igloos and birthday cakes, endure twisted religious preaching and eat in a canteen overlooked by the mysterious portrait of a leering Abbess. But when another resident secretly hands Marian a book recounding the life of the Abbess, a joyous and brilliantly surreal adventure begins to unfold. Written in the early 1960s, The Hearing Trumpet remains one of the most original and inspirational of all fantastic novels.

A classic of fantastic literature, Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet is the occult twin to Alice in Wonderland, with an afterword by Olga Tokarkczuk

Author Description: Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) was a British born Surrealist painter and writer described, alongside people such as Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro, as one of the leading lights of the Surrealist movement. Born in Lancashire to a strict Catholic family, she first came into contact with surrealism through her lover, Surrealist painter Max Ernst, before moving to Mexico in 1942. The Hearing Trumpet, her most famous piece of writing, was first published in France in 1974.

Reviews:
'Reading The Hearing Trumpet liberates us from the miserable reality of our days'
Luis Buñuel

'One of the most original, joyful, satisfying and quietly visionary novels of the twentieth century'
Ali Smith

'This book is so inspiring...I love its freedom, its humour and how it invents its own laws. What specifically do I take from her? Her wig'
Björk