In this episode, we speak to novelist and short story writer Helen Oyeyemi about her most recent novel, Parasol Against the Axe. We discuss the use of non-linearity when attempting to write about a complex city like Prague. We chat about the city as a dissociative state, and the relationship to surrealism and conflicting histories. We speak about the intimate relationship between reading, writing and desire, and the way that books can reveal details about the reader, as well as the author. We explore the book as a living object which shifts across time and space, and the use of play and perplexity across Oyeyemi's work. We discuss what it means to resist master narratives and embrace slippery, shapeshifting narrators, subverting the reader's expectations. We examine a hunger for novels which require the reader to work, and what it means to be actively involved in the process of meaning-making.
Helen Oyeyeymi is the author of The Icarus Girl, The Opposite House, White is for Witching (which won a Somerset Maugham Award), Mr Fox, Boy, Snow, Bird, Gingerbread, What Is Not Yours Is Yours, and Peaces, which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. In 2013, Helen was included in Granta's Best Young British Novelists.
References
Parasol Against the Axe by Helen Oyeyemi
Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyeymi
Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyeymi
Mr Fox by Helen Oyeyeymi
White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyeymi
The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi
De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
Prague Tales by Jan Neruda
