THE HEARING TRUMPET

Leonora Carrington, the great surrealist painter and novelist, introduces us to the most unpredictable literary heroine of the 20th century, Marian Leatherby, a hard-of-hearing, vegetarian nonagenarian, full of lust for life, despite her ninety-two years of age. When her scientist friend Carmela donates a hearing trumpet, she regains her hearing and discovers that her family is about to send her to a retirement home. Her sadness is great, as she will not be able to make her dream trip to Lapland. Instead, she finds herself in this bizarre retirement home, where all the residents live in strange lodgings, suffer the owners’ erratic sermons and dine under the sly gaze of a mysterious portrait of an abbess. And when one of the residents secretly gives Marian a book recounting the abbess’s life, an unlikely surreal adventure unfolds… maybe Lapland would manage to go to Marian after all? The Hearing Trumpet, an occult version of Alice in Wonderland, is a classic of surrealist literature. As Luis Buñuel said, “Reading the Hearing Trumpet, we are liberated from the miserable reality surrounding us”.