The Faculty Of Dreams (Valerie)
Sara Stridsberg, Deborah Braga-Turner (translation)Sara Stridsberg revisits and reimagines the sad, strange life of Valerie Solanas: writer, radical feminist & would-be assassin of Andy Warhol. Translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner.
In April 1988, Valerie Solanas died alone & penniless. She was only 52, alone & surrounded by the typed pages of her last writings. Stridsberg goes to the hotel room where Solanas’ body was found, the courtroom where she was convicted of attempting to murder Andy Warhol, the Georgia wastelands of her atrociously abusive childhood, & the mental hospitals that interned her. Through imagined conversations and monologues, Stridsberg reconstructs this enigmatic woman, giving a powerful, heartbreaking voice to the gifted writer of the infamous SCUM Manifesto.
"... a shimmering & nuanced portrait of the ideals Solanas might have held, and a life that could have brought her to that understanding. The gentleness & strength of Stridsberg’s writing lends itself perfectly to this deeply empathetic novel. Most of all, in the story’s refusal to seek easy answers, its dedication to acknowledge & address the difficulties of its own construction, & its belief in the power of writing all make Valerie a book & a portrayal that I think Solanas herself would be proud of ..." — Ian J. Battaglia, The Chicago Review Of Books
Sara Stridsberg was born in Solna, Sweden, in August 1972. She is a writer & playwright. Her second novel, The Faculty of Dreams, won the Nordic Council Literature Prize, & her novels have four times been shortlisted for Sweden’s August Prize. The Gravity of Love – Ode to My Family, has been sold in 15 languages & was the 2015 Swedish winner of the European Prize for Literature.