Books by Leonora Carrington

In English for the first time, a wild and darkly funny book that combines Surrealist painter Leonora Carringon''s fantastical writing and illustrations for childrenThe maverick surrealist Leonora Carrington was an extraordinary painter and storyteller who loved to make up stories and draw pictures for her children. She lived much of her life in Mexico, and her sons remember sitting in a big room whose walls were covered with images of wondrous creatures, towering mountains, and ferocious vegetation while she told fabulous and funny tales. That room was later whitewashed, but some of its wonders were preserved in the little notebook that Carrington called  The Milk of Dreams.  John, who has wings for ears, Humbert the Beautiful, an insufferable kid who befriends a crocodile and grows more insufferable yet, and the awesome Janzamajoria are all to be encountered in The Milk of Dreams, a book that is as unlikely, outrageous, and dreamy as dreams themselves.

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.

”Set i dette lys er klassikeren Hørerøret en efterkrigs-, efternuklear vision, der runger langt ind i vores globalt opvarmede tidsalder. En genudgivelse kunne ikke være kommet på et bedre tidspunkt … En af det 20. århundredes mest originale, frydefulde, tilfredsstillende og stilfærdigt visionære romaner.” Ali Smith. HØRERØRET (udgivet første gang i 1974) er en vildt fabulerende humoristisk historie om 92-årige Marian Leatherby, der bliver tvunget på plejehjem af sin søn og svigerdatter. På plejehjemmet bor de gamle i små huse af form som fx en iglo og en lagkage og bliver konstant ydmyget af forstanderparret. I spisesalen hænger et maleri af en abedisse, som pirrer Marians nysgerrighed, og da hun får fingre i en bog om abedissens liv, tager historien en surrealistisk drejning. Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) var født i en velhavende familie i det nordvestlige England, men gjorde oprør og tog til London for at gå på kunstskole. Her mødte hun Max Ernst, som hun fik et forhold til, og sammen flyttede de til Paris, hvor hun blev en del af den surrealistiske bevægelse omkring André Breton. Da nazisterne invaderede Frankrig, blev Max Ernst som tysk statsborger interneret, og Leonora Carrington flygtede først til Spanien, derfra til New York og videre til Mexico, hvor hun boede resten af sit liv.

In this first complete edition of Leonora Carrington's short stories, written throughout her life from her early years in Surrealist Paris to her late period in Dirty War-era Mexico City, the world is by turns subversive, funny, sly, wise and disarming.