Philosophical Toys
Nina, a drifter from southern Spain comes to London in search of experience, only to find that the strangest of stories is hiding in her father's loft in America...
A playfully concocted, fast-paced novel committed to the irresistible pleasure of reading, both a celebration and a critique of our relationship to objects (from fetishes, to curios, to commodities, to objectum sexuality, to our becoming cyborgs through our addiction to technology), Philosophical Toys travels through different times, countries and experiences as chance leads Nina to encounter time and again the enigmatic nature of things, which end up transforming her into that most rare of species: a female philosopher.
Witty and elegiac, Philosophical Toys takes the reader on a tour of fetishism, late capitalist culture, Buñuel's films, psychoanalysis, Alzheimer's disease, as well as the avatars of belonging to two cultures, an experience increasingly shared by a myriad of expatriates.
Susana Medina is the author of Philosophical Toys, offspring of which are the short films Buñuel’s Philosophical Toys and Leather-bound Stories (co-directed with Derek Ogbourne); Red Tales (bilingual ed. co-translated with Rosie Marteau); Souvenirs del Accidente and Rebel Rebel –An Emergency Dialogue (co-written with Roc Sandford). Her work has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, including Best European Fiction, 2014, Dalkey Archive Press. She has been awarded the Max Aub Short Story International Prize and an ACE Writing Grant for Spinning Days of Night. Medina has collaborated extensively with artists, exhibited at Tate Modern and is a climate activist.
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