Josephine Saxton

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Josephine Mary Howard Saxton (born on 11. June 1935 in Halifax , Yorkshire ) is a British writer whose works often at the limits of science fiction and postmodern , feminist move mainstream.

Life

Saxton is the daughter of dentist Ernest Howard and Clarice Lavinia, née Crowther. She attended Clare Hall County Secondary School and graduated from Halifax College of Art and Craft . After that she worked temporarily as a teacher. In 1958 she married the artist Geoffrey Banks, with whom she has a son. After separating from him, she married Colin Saxton, also an artist, in 1962, with whom she has a son and a daughter. The marriage was divorced in 1983. Saxton lives in Warwickshire.

In 1965, her first short story, The Wall, appeared in the November issue of Science Fantasy magazine . It can already be regarded as typical of its narrative form as a whole: A wall runs through a dreamlike, barren landscape. For the protagonists, a pair of lovers separated by the wall, the wall is more of a representation of the inner state than an objective obstacle, the symbol of an insurmountable barrier that separates the sexes, despite all the details with which the landscape and the wall are described. The story has been anthologized several times, including in 1967 in Judith Merrill's The Year's Best SF and in The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women .

From 1969 Saxton published a number of novels, each of which is about travel. Here again, according to John Clute, “stories which, as a result, can be read more as allegories of the spiritual transformation of the protagonists than as a physical journey.” In her first novel, The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith , it is again a barren, desert Landscape in which she moves her isolated figures on an inner search, similar to Jane Saint's journey through a dream landscape populated with embodiments of feminist consciousness. Her best-known book is Queen of the States , which was nominated for the 1987 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British SF Association Award . The ambivalence of the title (it can be read both as “Queen of the USA” and as “Queen of the (states of consciousness)”) reflects the ambivalence of the content: it remains unclear what the inner world and what the outer world is, whether Magdalen is actually queen of the USA and whether it is actually kidnapped and investigated by aliens.

Paul Kincaid notes the ease with which Saxton's stories could be sequentially assigned to the New Wave of the 1970s and the feminist SF of the 1980s without Saxton having adapted in any way. Another - more current - attribution would be the slipstream form of the postmodern novel , which takes up elements of science fiction and fantasy, but pursues its own goals and does not adhere to the genre conventions, at most plays with or breaks them. However, a clear allocation results from the form of the publications, here you will find mostly SF magazines or SF series.

Despite some recognition, Saxton's success with critics and readers was ultimately neither resounding nor lasting. Her last novel, Queen of the States , was published in 1986, followed by a few short stories. Gardening Down a Rabbit Hole followed in 1996 , in which she tells of the world building of science fiction, turning away from the construction of the small world of her private garden.

bibliography

Novels
  • The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith (1969)
  • Vector for Seven (1970)
  • Group Feast (1971)
  • Queen of the States (1986)
Collections
  • The Power of Time (1985)
  • Little Tours of Hell (1986)
  • The Travails of Jane Saint and Other Stories (1986)
  • The Consciousness Machine / Jane Saint and the Backlash: The Further Travails of Jane Saint (1989)
Jane Saint (short story series)
  • Jane Saint's Travails (Part One) (1979)
    • English: The journeys of the Jane Saint. In: Jessica Salmonson (Ed.): Amazons !. Bastei Lübbe (Bastei Lübbe Science Fiction Special # 24023), 1981, ISBN 3-404-24023-5 .
  • The Travails of Jane Saint (1980)
  • Jane Saint and the Backlash (1989)
Short stories
  • The Wall (1965)
  • Ne Déjà Vu Pas (1967)
  • Nothing Much To Relate (1967)
  • Light On Cader (1968)
  • The Consciousness Machine (1968, revised 1989)
  • Dormant Soul (1969)
  • The Triumphant Head (1970)
  • The Power of Time (1971)
    • German: The power of time. In: James Gunn (ed.): From Ballard to Stableford. Heyne (Library of Science Fiction Literature # 101), 2001, ISBN 3-453-17953-6 .
  • Nature Boy (1971)
  • Heads Africa Tails America (1971)
  • Living Wild (1971)
  • Black Sabbatical (1971)
  • Elouise and the Doctors of the Planet Pergamon (1972)
  • In Memoriam, Jeannie (1974)
  • Food and Love (1975)
  • Lyserge of Anaglyptang (1975)
  • Gordon's Women (1976)
  • Woe, Blight, and in Heaven, Laughs: a Grim Household Tale (1978)
  • Alien Sensation (1978)
  • To Market, To Market (1981)
  • The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky (1981)
  • No Coward Soul (1982)
  • Lover from Beyond the Dawn of Time (1985)
  • New Aesthetics (1985)
  • Silence in Having Words: Purple (1985)
  • Big Operation on Altair Three (1985)
  • The Cup is the Wine (1986)
  • A Little Tour of Hell (1986)
  • Dinner at the Manse (1986)
  • Falling in Love at Christmas (1986)
  • First Day at Herradura (1986)
  • Jackie Loves Food - True (1986)
  • Oily Foreign Muck (1986)
  • Souvenirs of Devon (1986)
  • Spaghetti Halifax (1986)
  • Tea and No Sympathy (1986)
  • The Cure (1986)
  • The Golden Mile (1986)
  • The Rabbit Pie Man (1986)
  • The Sea Urchin (1986)
  • Virginia and Bread (1986)
  • The Message (1986)
  • The Pollyanna Enzyme (1986)
  • The Interferences (1987)
  • Too Late (1988)
  • Getting Together (1988)
  • The Emigration (1989)
  • The Great Brain Legend (1990)
  • The Ancestress (1990)
  • A Strange Sort of Friend (1992)
Non-fiction
  • Gardening Down a Rabbit Hole (1996)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Orion Publishing Group website , accessed July 25, 2018.
  2. ↑ "[...] narratives whose outcomes are more readable as allegories of their protagonists' moral fates than of any physical journey".
personal data
SURNAME Saxton, Josephine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Saxton, Josephine Mary Howard (full name); Howard, Josephine (maiden name); Banks, Josephine (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British science fiction writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Halifax , Yorkshire