By Susana Medina
ISBN: 9781628975727
Publication Date: 7/15/25
Nina, a drifter from southern Spain comes to London in search of experience, only to find that the strangest of stories is hiding in her father's loft in Almería...
A playfully concocted, fast-paced novel committed to the irresistible pleasure of reading, both a celebration and a critique of our relationship to objects (from fetishes, to curios, to commodities, to objectum sexuality, to our becoming cyborgs through our addiction to technology), Philosophical Toys travels through different times, countries and experiences as chance leads Nina to encounter time and again the enigmatic nature of things, which end up transforming her into that most rare of species: a female philosopher.
Witty and elegiac, Philosophical Toys takes the reader on a tour of fetishism, late capitalist culture, Buñuel's films, psychoanalysis, Alzheimer's disease, as well as the avatars of belonging to two cultures, an experience increasingly shared by a myriad of expatriates.
Reviews
"Powerful & mysterious, this novel's headiness might seem daunting, but readers who take a patient approach will find a deeply rewarding and often haunting narrative emerge." —Kirkus Reviews
"Philosophical Toys remains taut, luminous, hallucinatory throughout [...] Gorgeous like Ballard’s best stories are, Medina has written a novel of perverse delight but with a narcotic tenderness that heroically betrays its stiletto depravities, decidedly going along different aberrant transits than Ballard." —Richard Marshal, 3:AM Magazine
"Exuberant, intelligent, touching and playful, Philosophical Toys is a joyful invitation to us, to love all the things that we are..." —Joanna Walsh, The Nation
"Susana Medina is a genius." —Deborah Levy
"A prose both spare and lush, a commendable tension about the enterprise." —Will Self
"A shockingly beautiful innovative voice in which the sublime and laughter are perfectly matched." —Andrew Gallix
"Medina’s novel confidently defies categorization, and, for the most part, skilfully navigates this jostling melee of elements..." —Rosie Clark, Public Books
"A witty, funny, and sensual novel, with an unlikely balance of fetishism and philosophical rumination. Medina is one of the most remarkable contemporary writers in London." —Fernando Sdrigotti, Minor Literatures
"The wisdom of Philosophical Toys should be graced." —Ambit
"Philosophical Toys is beautiful, pure, interesting technically, deep, profound philosophically, consistent, honest, exciting, true." —Roc Sandford
"Philosophical Toys is ultimately a story about tenderness, for both people and the objects they live through; a novel of ideas rooted in the senses, glittering, strange and humane." —Lornda Scott Fox
"Outstanding."—3:AM Magazine
Biographical Information
Susana Medina is the author of Philosophical Toys, offspring of which are the short films Buñuel’s Philosophical Toys and Leather-bound Stories (co-directed with Derek Ogbourne); Red Tales (bilingual ed. co-translated with Rosie Marteau); Souvenirs del Accidente and Rebel Rebel–An Emergency Dialogue (co-written with Roc Sandford). Her work has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, including Best European Fiction, 2014, Dalkey Archive Press. She has been awarded the Max Aub Short Story International Prize and an ACE Writing Grant for Spinning Days of Night. Medina has collaborated extensively with artists, exhibited at Tate Modern and is a climate activist.