Synopses & Reviews
When love, lust, and longing, have all but killed you, and Newtonian physics has become too painfully restrictive, is it possible to find freedom in another dimension? Have you lost the will to live, or the will to live as human? Castaways in unmapped terrain, the characters in The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Far burrow underground in tunnels made by ancient nautiluses. They lay eggs by the seashore, and greet the sailors who come to carry those eggs away. And each by each, they choose to liveand#8212;but to surrender their human forms. From within their peculiar neither-here-nor-there-doms, they learn to live in unbounded states, with edges that can no longer be marked, and meanings that can no longer be defined.
Quintan Ana Wikswo's work appears regularly in Tin House, Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, Gulf Coast, and Folio, among other publications. She has been artist in residence in literature, visual art, film, and performance at Yaddo and Djerassi.
Review
"These stunning, solitary and cinematic letters to the self (think of the Quays and Band#233;la Tarr speaking together in dreamtime) bear witness to a world beloved and betrayed, the spent and brutal collisions of irretrievable loss with what might have been possible."and#151;Rikki Ducornet
Review
and#147;Each of the 10 stories in the collection feels crafted into a distinctive object and thoughtfully presented, practically hung on a wall for the audience's contemplation. This makes for an unconventional reading experience that is as visual as it is verbal. . . in Wikswo's book, the text and paratext are equally deliberate and interesting, and are, as befits a cross-genre artist, difficult to separate."and#151;
The Chicago Tribune"Wikswo's singular lines strike like the tone of a bell, resonating across pages . . . The stories . . . take the reader on a journey where myth, mystery, and the impossible have never seemed more real.and#8221;and#160;and#151;Publishers Weekly
and#147;In this mysterious work, Wikswo has found a new way to dramatize historical horrors and ambiguities.and#8221;and#151;The Star Tribune
and#147;Thereand#8217;s a mesmerizing sense of timespace travel in these stories, which seem to simultaneously inhabit ancient mythological eras and the present day.and#8221;and#151;LitHub
and#147;An intoxicating read that feels at once universal and personal, comforting and jarring, ethereal and earthy.and#8221;and#151;Electric Literature
and#147;[The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Far] blends stark prose and shifting imagery with images that sometimes accentuate the words on the page and sometimes bring moments into sharp (pardon the pun) focus. Itand#8217;s unlike anything else youand#8217;re likely to read this year."and#151;Vol. 1 Brooklyn
and#147;What would ordinarily be conjured in the readerand#8217;s imagination, is readily provided in full color to create an additional layer of metaphor and meaning against the text.and#8221;and#151;Drunken Boat
and#147;For a society recently focused on how rigidly we should adhere to the identities that are supposed to define us, Quintan Ana Wikswoand#8217;s new book of photography and stories comes as a spiritual guide.and#8221;and#151;Creative Capital
and#147;Although the foundation of the book is her sparkling prose, the accompanying visual art is just as integral to the story, itself a meditation on the discomfort of 'painfully restrictive Newtonian physics' and the quest to escape the torments of human desire by finding solace in a parallel universe.and#8221;and#151;LA Weekly
and#147;A multi-sensory reading experience. You donand#8217;t just read the stories; you engage with them . . . It is through Wikswoand#8217;s poetic language and movement that we can recognize, live, and exist in our own ecology of complexity.and#8221;and#151;Electric Literature
and#147;Quintan Ana Wikswoand#8217;s debut book, The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us this Far, occupies territory the way only the bravest literary works do: the characters and places within shirk boundaries and create new ones, exist both inside and outside the world as we know it, and redefine love and existence in an unexpected and wildly queer way.and#8221;and#151;Lambda Literary
and#147;Like shortwave radio dispatches from another Universe where the edges that separate us are constantly blurring and shifting.and#8221;and#151;Lambda Literary
and#147;An evocative new short story collection.and#8221;and#151;Lambda Literary
and#147;The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Far is the acclaimed new book of words and images by Quintan Ana Wikswo, an artist and writer who has never limited herself to only one medium and certainly not to two dimensions.and#8221;and#151;LA Weekly
and#147;Quintan Ana Wikswo's short story collectionand#160;The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Farand#160;boldly combines prose and photography to create a unique, mesmerizing, and unforgettable reading experience."and#151;Largehearted Boy
and#147;When Brooklyn-based author, visual artist, photographer and filmmaker Quintan Ana Wikswo celebrates the release of her new book The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Far, you can be sure that the former human rights activist wonand#8217;t settle for a simple reading and QandA."and#151;Bedford + Bowery
"Wikswo is equally deft with words and photographs . . . Wikswoand#8217;s desire to reintroduce the reader to an intense level of natural vitality . . . is not so much an attempt to erase the modern but to restore something ancient and eternal to its rightful place."and#151;Vertigo
and#147;Dedicated to those inhabiting the meeting point of nihilism and romance, Wikswo's tales palpate the tiny, tender parts of us that dare to hope for love and belonging in the face of a cold and unkind universe . . . Blurring the edges of reality and challenging the body's limits, Wikswo offers a glimpse of what could transpire if our deepest desires devoured us.and#8221;and#151;Bookslut
The stories breathe with peripheral intensity. . . . There is a rhythm to this movement, a music, a life. The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Far may change the way you view the book as object, the story as word.and#8221;and#151;Warscapes
and#147;[The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Farand#160;explores] humanity from the outside, not just crossing genres but exploding them. Quintan combines text and photography to give us characters who have left their bodies, and whose stories have become boundless. She writes with both a lightness and the weight of lives unlived, of remorse, and of loss.and#8221;and#151;0sand1s
"These stunning, solitary and cinematic letters to the self (think of the Quays and Band#233;la Tarr speaking together in dreamtime) bear witness to a world beloved and betrayed, the spent and brutal collisions of irretrievable loss with what might have been possible."and#151;Rikki Ducornet
and#147;Quintan Ana Wikswo, in her unique and magnificentand#160;The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Far, has ignited an extraordinary condensation of texts and images that culls together spirit, compassion, and dreams. Throughout her foray into extensions of the mind and the limits of the body she exudes an uncanny power of magic and wizardry.and#8221;and#151;Lynn Hershman Leeson,and#160;Director of Women Art Revolution
"You will find within these pages a marvelous alchemy of image and text, all of it radiant, sensual, endlessly layered.and#160;The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Farand#160;is at once a seduction and an insurrection: a paean to lovers, explorers, resisters, and those without borders."and#151;National Book Award finalist Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, author ofand#160;Madeleine is Sleeping
Synopsis
In these stories, characters defy the limits of physics to escape the all too human pain of love and loss.
About the Author
QUINTAN ANA WIKSWOand#8217;s work appears regularly in
Tin House, Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, Gulf Coast, Alaska Quarterly Review, Denver Quarterly, and
Folio, among other publications. She has been artist in residence in literature, visual art, film, and performance at Yaddo, Djerassi, Ebenband#246;ckhaus, Oberpfalzer Kunstlerhaus, and Can Serrat. In 2013, the Jewish Museum Berlin presented a five-month solo exhibition of her project Sonderbauten, which explores state-sponsored sexual violence against women through photographs, poetry installations, and film. Wikswo is the coand#150;artistic director of Fieldshift Further, a transdisciplinary performance company creating new works at sites with human rights and ecological impact, and a core artist with Los Angelesand#150;based Catalysis Projects/LA, an interdisciplinary collaborative new works company.