Surrealism, Le Guin, Life, and Blade Runner

Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner, and Ursula K. Le Guin explore the consciousness of self and the ongoing problem of everyday life, the questions of how do we live? Can we make a difference? These are questions of urgency.

Surrealism enters into consideration. Imagination devours borders, defies space, and laughs at time. Surrealism is well-known for its energy, innovations, and discoveries, bringing together startling juxtapositions, diverse objects, and chance encounters.

Such creative explorations of the brilliant Pluriverse of radical versions of reality that lie outside the miserabilist cage of voluntary servitude need not be dismissed as mere escapist fantasy, but can be better understood as freely stemming from the subversive desire to undo reality in the anarchic pursuit of individual autonomy and mutual aid.

Edited by Penelope Rosemont
Lavishly illustrated by Joel Williams

Contents:

Surrealism, Prophecies, & Everyday Life: Notes
by Penelope Rosemont

Life and Its Simulation: Reflections from Blade Runner
by Michael Richardson

Surrealism Meets Fantasy
by China Miéville

The Aquarium of the Night: On Ursula Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven by Lawton Browning

Outsiders, Mad Hipsters, Surrealism, and Ursula K. LeGuin
by Paul Buhle

Undoing Reality
by Ron Sakolsky

Speech in Acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
by Ursula K. Le Guin