In 1976, one year after the publication of his masterpiece Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany wrote Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia. A prescient, layered and vexing novel, Triton traces the existential crises of gender, sex, alienation and desire plaguing its protagonist Bron Helstrom as he navigates daily life as a white-collar tech worker living in a gender-specified housing cooperative on Neptune´s moon Triton. A story of unrequited desire and petty social complaints unfolds amidst exquisite science-fictional word-building and the rich meta-textual study Delany is known for.
We are joined by artist and fellow Delany enthusiast Lyn Corelle. Although the book´s meaning is evasive, we have an amazing time discussing utopias and their discontents, political economy and war, the futurity of individualism and gender, and Delany´s peculiar interrogation of the political through relational tension.
Samuel R. Delany: ´To Read the Dispossessed´ (1976)
On Triton and Other Matters: An Interview with Samuel R. Delany (1990)
Joanna Russ: ´Recent Feminist Utopias´ (1981)
Michel Foucault: On Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias
Lyn Correlle can be found at:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/lyncorelle
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sex_forest
Twitter: https://twitter.com/unseenbookclub
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unseenbookclub_podcast
Music by ex-official: https://exofficialexo.bandcamp.com
Art by Eli Liebman: https://elimack.weebly.com/