by Seb Doubinsky
LIBERATION NOW! is a manifesto, and a hopeful ending to my City-States cycle. With its female-only main characters and revolutionary undertones (and overtones, I admit, it belongs to a long tradition of subversive and radical writings and writers. The psychedelic elements present in my novel also belong to a literary patchwork existing since, at least, the 1920s and 30s. Literature is a place of conflict, a battlefield and not a peaceful library, as we are often led to believe. To read is to put on imaginary glasses to see the world as it is, in all its horror and glory. So here are some books that directly inspired my rebellious story and its characters.
1. Grace Slick, Somebody to Love?
Grace Slick wasn’t only the fabulous singer of Jefferson Airplane, but also a staunch radical figure. Her autobiography is full of funny anecdotes, but also of feminist and revolutionary thoughts and comments that show us that the struggle for absolute gender equality is not over and that we need to “keep on keeping on”, as Curtis Mayfield sang.
2. Ann Quin, Tripticks
Ann Quin is a fabulous anti-conformist writer from the 1960s, who blended social satire, Freudian psychology and Surrealism in spectacular novels that literally blow the reader’s mind. Tripticks is a novel about paranoia, love, consumer society, and the American capitalist dream, painted in hyper-realistic colors that melt as you are looking at them. It’s a novel about being trapped and entrapped, but with an incredible amount of freedom surging out of this absolute destruction.
3. Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star
The Hour of the Star inspired me because of its absolute freedom of style and revolutionary narrative. The paradox is that it is a completely pessimistic story, focused on the complete alienation of the main character, Macabéa (whose name means “cadaver,” by the way), who is a hopeless secretary dreaming of becoming a star. However, the way the story is narrated and its warped perspective creates a unique and exhilarating liberating experience, breaking all the reader’s mental prison walls at once.
4. Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice.
This is maybe Pynchon’s most accessible and funniest novel, and the way it describes the end of the Golden Era of the psychedelic sixties directly inspired “Liberation Now!” as I wanted to pay homage to both the writer and the era — by imagining a new psychedelic Golden Age and a succesful world revolution… What’s more, Pyncho0n’s female characters are always strong, radical and fearless, which is also the case in my fiction, and in particular in “Liberation Now!”
5. Leora Skolkin-Smith, Hystera
Set in the 1970s, Hystera is a deeply moving book about a young woman’s depression, psychosis, and redemption. Skolkin-Smith’s portrait of this fragile, yet extremely resilient, woman gave me deep insight into the invisible frames that provoke our alienation — sometimes literally speaking. In “Liberation Now!”, one of the main characters, Akiko Sanchez, the president of New Babylon, is threatened with mandatory confinement in a psychiatric ward because she doesn’t conform to her role anymore. This is my way of showing that no matter how much power a woman can have, she will always be threatened by the male-centered system. This is what Hystera showed me, and why it is such an important book for me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Seb Doubinsky is a bilingual writer born in Paris in 1963. His novels, all set in a dystopian universe revolving around competing cities-states, have been published in the UK and in the USA. He currently lives with his family in Aarhus, Denmark, where he teaches at the university.
LIBERATION NOW! by Seb Doubinsky
GENRE: Science Fiction | Fantasy
BOOK PAGE: https://meerkatpress.com/books/liberation-now/
A radical and trippy scifi political fable about an improbable gang of women fighting for the freedom of planet Earth.
Things are looking grim for Earth as the alien force known as the Subliminal Empire seems to enjoy a complete yet unnoticed control of the planet. However, a motley crew composed of a city-state president on the run, a financial advisor who quit her job, a disgruntled academic studying the dangers of A.I. and an undercover alien agent who previously worked as a manager for a rock band might very well jeopardize the cosmic imperialists’ plan and prove once and for all that one should never underestimate the power of women when it comes to liberation.
Doubinsky masterfully crescendos his genre-defying saga in this breathless, action-packed standalone finale.
BUY LINKS
Meerkat Press | Bookshop.org | Amazon
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