Will Self
Monday, October 29, 2007, 7 pm



reading from
Psychogeography
co-authored with Ralph Steadman
published by Bloomsbury

Provocatuers Will Self and Ralph Steadman join forces in this magnificent and artfully rendered meditation on the vexed relationship between personal psyche and physical place in the contemporary world. Together, Self and Steadman illuminate the ways in which human and physical geography go hand-in-hand—how one naturally influences the other, whether we are always aware of this connection or not.

Dating back to Guy Debord and the Situationists of 1960’s Paris, the discipline of psychogeography explores the “effects of geographical environment…on the emotions and behavior of individuals,” according to Debord. Will Self, a long distance walker, relates to place intimately, as pedestrians often do, and in this collection he aims to unravel how modern life has warped this essential connection.

Opening with a dazzling essay about a walk Self took from London to New York, Psychogeography includes 50 short essays by Self illustrated in full-color by Steadman. Together, Self and Steadman put their own spin on psychogeography. Part memory, part reflection, part observation, set in places as far flung as Iowa and India, Psychogeography charts their mutual quest for place in our increasingly disorienting world.

Will Self is the acclaimed author of such books as The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Great Apes, How the Dead Live, and The Book of Dave. He won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was short listed for the Whitbread. He lives in London. Ralph Steadman is the author of Sigmund Freud, I Leonardo, The Big I Am, The Scar-Strangled Banner, the novel Doodaaa, and the memoir The Joke’s Over: Memories of Hunter S. Thompson. He is also the illustrator of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Alice, Animal Farm and The Devil’s Dictionary. He lives in Kent.