← Items Overview
Item: A History Maker
1994
Book, 19.8 x 13 cm, 223 p., language : English, publisher : Canongate Books Ltd, Edinburgh (First published by Canongate Press in 1994), ISBN : 978-1-84195-576-6.
Materials: Ink, paper
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2027/31).
Literary synopsis
The book is deceptive and plays the same trick as Poor Things, in that you think in first reading that what you're getting is a straight adventure story, whereas it in fact holds a profound debate on society, both past and present. The book is set in a time where automated power plants, with a never-ending power source, create food, warmth, housing and clothing so the population do not have to work and want for nothing. War is now a spectator sport and the novel opens with Wat Dryhope's father leading his army to certain death in order to draw the battle on a technicality. Wat yearns for a time when life meant struggle. The book debates the point that a life without pain and battle is no life at all. As in Poor Things, the novel ends with a long section of historical notes.
Authorship: Artist Author.
Creative Strategy: No Link to Artworks.
Genre: Adventures, Speculative Fiction.
Publishing: Publishing House.
Theme: Socio-Political Critic, Utopian Worlds, War.
