Piece of Paper Press is delighted to present the first publication (in a limited, numbered edition of 150) of ‘The Bowie Neurotransmitter’, a new text work by the author Susana Medina. ‘The Bowie Neurotransmitter’ will be launched with an event at London’s Bookartbookshop on the evening of Tuesday 10 January 2017, the first anniversary of David Bowie’s death.

Medina’s acute and evocative account of initially adolescent engagements with Bowie’s work—and the ‘fantasy of rapport’ he created—transcends nostalgia, and ‘The Bowie Neurotransmitter’ is at once personal and profound.

For Medina, David Bowie is ‘fundamentally political’. She writes:

There’s a politics of the self, and a politics of outrage. Bowie has been fundamental in my life. I discovered his songs in my adolescence, a time of crisis and rupture which marks loss of innocence. I learnt English with Bowie by translating most of his early LPs and singing along with him. Throughout the years, with gaps here and there, I often returned to his songs and wept.
Like many of us who love Bowie’s music, I was devastated on the 11th January 2016. Not having posted anything for ages in Facebook, I began sharing a series of posts and a friend emailed me, saying how saddened she was too and that it was a mystery how the communal sadness seemed overwhelming and yet, ‘he never had a message of “peace and love”.’ I quickly replied that oh, yes he did, quoting a few relevant songs. A longer reply continued to grow in my head over the following days. I started writing, and found myself writing a tribute. This piece became a love letter, a thank you letter, a way to dissect my tears and a proud homage to all those who feel part of the Bowie lineage.

Part of the print run of the Piece of Paper Press edition of ‘The Bowie Neurotransmitter’ by Susana Medina will be distributed free at the launch, while stocks last.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE HERE

SUSANA MEDINA is the author of Philosophical Toys (Dalkey Archive Press), offspring of which are the short films Buñuel’s Philosophical Toys and Leather-bound Stories (co-directed with Derek Ogbourne). Other books include Red Tales / Cuentos Rojos (published in a bilingual edition, co-translated with Rosie Marteau) and Souvenirs del Accidente. Medina’s story ‘Oestrogen’ featured in Best European Fiction 2014 (Dalkey Archive Press). She has been awarded the Max Aub Short Story International Prize and a Grants for the Arts award from Arts Council England for her novel Spinning Days of Night. ‘Object Lessons’, an audio-visual story produced in collaboration with photographer Paul Louis Archer was recently published in El País in English. ‘Poem 66’, translated by R. Marteau, was runner-up in the Goodmorning Menagerie Translation Contest and will be published by the USA Press on 14 February 2017. Medina has also published a number of essays on literature, art, cinema, and photography, curated various well-received international art shows in abandoned spaces, contributed texts to art catalogues, exhibited at Tate Modern, and collaborated with numerous artists. Her website is www.susanamedina.net.

PIECE OF PAPER PRESS was created by author Tony White in 1994 as a lo-tech, sustainable artists’ book project to commission and publish new writings, visual and graphic works by artists and writers. Each book is manufactured from a single A4 sheet that is printed on both sides using a photocopier or a domestic printer, and then folded, stapled and trimmed by hand to create the book. Piece of Paper Press titles are always distributed free.

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Susana Medina, The Bowie Neurotransmitter, launch event
Bookartbookshop, 17 Pitfield St, London N1 6HB
Tuesday 10 January 2017, 6:30–8:00 p.m. (reading 7:15)

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