Prantera, Amanda
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1942- ) UK-born translator and author, in Italy since the age of twenty-two, several of whose works combine a strong, fluent emotional drive with a use of narrative conventions, like the Gothic, that comes close to Parody. This is very clear in her first novel, Strange Loop (1984), in which an overheated young Catholic woman is convinced she is a Werewolf, and the narrator of the tale ties himself into a life of guilt and avoidance by leaving her to her fate. In The Cabalist (1985) a similar revenant protagonist, haunted by the Secret History of the World his colleagues had long ago perhaps deciphered from the cabala, longs to share the Magic power they had (perhaps) gained access to. In Conversations with Lord Byron on Perversion, 163 Years After his Lordship's Death (1987), a Computer, programmed with everything known about Lord Byron so that scholars can understand him better, becomes sentient (see AI), and begins to write poetry.
None of her later work is sf, but some titles have fantastic elements: The Kingdom of Fanes (1995), which is strongly told, euhemerizes Faerie, though unworldly doublings persist; Spoiler (2003) treats the Millennium as possibly the culmination of a long Secret History (not the same that haunts The Cabalist above); Sabine (2005) as by A P is a Vampire novel set in 1950s Paris amongst schoolgirls learning about Sex; Wolfsong (2012) is a Werewolf tale set in 1960s London. [JC]
Amanda Mary Prantera
born Newmarket, Suffolk: 23 April 1942
works (selected)
- Strange Loop (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984) [hb/]
- The Cabalist (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985) [hb/Emma Chichester-Clark]
- Conversations with Lord Byron on Perversion, 163 Years After his Lordship's Death (London: Jonathan Cape, 1987) [hb/Emma Chichester-Clark]
- The Kingdom of Fanes (London: Bloomsbury, 1995) [hb/Connie Prantera]
- Sabine (London: Bloomsbury, 2005) as by A P [hb/]
- Wolfsong (London: Quartet Books, 2012) [pb/]
links
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