The Divinity Gene - Brossura

Trafford, Matthew J.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1553656032 ISBN 13: 9781553656036

Casa editrice: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd, 2011

Riassunto

A mob of teens descends upon Paris in the thrall of a self-help author; a grotesque yard-sale statuette frees a dying man from his silence; the hottest club in town is staffed by angels. This is the uncanny world of The Divinity Gene, Matthew J. Trafford's debut story collection, and it bristles with humour, pathos, and imaginative power.

Skewering urban culture even as it conjures up the magic in the mundane, the stories of The Divinity Gene map the frailty of the human heart. Caught in the crosshairs of faith and science, its charactersùbereaved, sidelined, cast adriftùjourney forth to undiscovered places, in search of something to believe in, someone to love, always with disarming results. A passionately devout scientist clones Jesus Christ from the DNA contained in holy relics; a man makes a Faustian cyber deal with the devil for the sake of his family; grieving parents sign on for an unorthodox government reparations project following a school tragedy.

Masterfully original, deeply human, The Divinity Gene introduces a bold and evocative new writer.

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Informazioni sugli autori

Matthew J. Trafford's fiction has appeared in The Malahat Review and Matrix and has been anthologized in Darwin's Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow. He has won the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction and an honourable mention at the National Magazine Awards and has twice been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Prize. He lives in Toronto, where he works with deaf college students and performs long-form improv with his brother in their two-person troupe, The Bromos.

Matthew J. Trafford's fiction has appeared in The Malahat Review and Matrix and has been anthologized in I.V. Lounge Nights and Darwin's Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow. He has won the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction, received an honourable mention at the National Magazine Awards, and has twice been shortlisted for the CSC Literary Prize. He lives in Toronto, where he works with Deaf college students and performs long-form improve with his brother in their two-person troupe, The Bromos.

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Q&A with Matthew j. Trafford (not from the flap)

Q: In The Divinity Gene, we seem to be at the crossroads of science and spirituality. Where would you say you fit as a writer, genre-wise?

A: Both science and spirituality attempt to explain the unknown, and imagination is crucial to both and imagination is also the driving engine behind fiction and stories. As a writer, I want my stories to reach as many people as possible anyone who wants to read them and share in my imaginary worlds is most welcome. So genre doesn t really concern me it s a classification that happens after the writing is done and published; as such, it s mostly the domain of readers, booksellers and critics. I don t think it s my place to say what genre the collection fits into, and I would hope it doesn t fit into just one.

I recently gave a reading of Gutted a story about the dissection of a mermaid and afterwards someone came up to me and said, You ll probably hate this, but I was thinking that story would be a great world to launch a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I don t hate that at all. I would love for The Divinity Gene to be embraced by the science fiction, fantasy and role-playing crowd. I would love it if scientists read it. And I m not going to lie: I d like it if the high-minded literary set appreciated it as well. I want to find readers who love the book that s my only goal and confining the book to one genre seems antithetical to that. Its whole point, as much as it has one, is to experiment with form and genre almost like a science experiment, in a way.

Q: Why did you opt for supernatural elements in your writing to represent the real world and current issues?

A: Insofar as it was a choice at all which it wasn t completely, I just write what I write it s because we re dealing with fiction here. It s the realm of the imagination, and anyone who picks up a book of fiction knows what they re reading isn t real. In that context, I ve never been one for mimetic realism or naturalism I read, to a certain extent, to escape the real world. Since we re dealing with an imaginary world in any short story, why not make up something outlandish and original, give reign to supernatural things we don t get to experience in our daily lives?

I should also say that a lot of the supernatural elements come from very old stories and myths. Because of that, they have a certain symbolic resonance built in, and readers connect with that, are already familiar with it to some extent. Stories of vampires and werewolves and other creatures have been around for thousands of years and are still hugely popular curiosity about the supernatural is inherent to the human experience, the human imagination. It s part of asking, What would it be like if things were different? I think that s the basic question of all fiction.

Grounding supernatural elements in realistic situations also allows us to see more about our lives lets us see the cracks in the real world where magic and wonder and awe and the inexplicable can seep in. That s what I m interested in writing about.

Recently I wondered if this penchant for supernatural elements was something I had picked up at some point during my training perhaps I was being too influenced by what I like to read? and also wondered whether it was a phase or something integral to my writing self. I then remembered two stories I wrote during my undergrad, before I started seriously studying writing at all. One was about a tiny boy named Little Bobby whose father found him inside a walnut, and the other was about a teenaged necrophiliac vampire hunter in Rivière du Loup (it was for this story I received my first rejection letter, by the way). So clearly this tendency towards the bizarre and supernatural is just something that s always been with me and is just part of being the writer I am. I m not going to fight it or try

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd
• Data di pubblicazione: 2011
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1553656032
• ISBN 13: 9781553656036
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 191
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Germania