Storm Jameson, Then We Shall Hear Singing: A Fantasy in C Major

Ashlie Sponenberg (University of Massachusetts, Lowell)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1942

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England (Country of Origin)

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Novel

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Then We Shall Hear Singing: A Fantasy in C Major

is the second of Storm Jameson's major anti-fascist, dystopian fantasies of the near-future. She describes in her memoirs how the idea for the novel came to her one night after an air raid, when she wondered whether memory would survive in a conquered country if Nazi scientists possessed the technology to destroy thought and will whilst keeping the working body intact. This scenario is dramatised in this novel of a fictional, Central European nation five years after its occupation by the Nazis.

Hesse, a German doctor and high-ranking Nazi official, lobotomises the people of a conquered village in order to eradicate their dangerous memories of national identity, democracy and equality. The plot develops around the eventual failure of Hesse's

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1270 words

Citation: Sponenberg, Ashlie. "Then We Shall Hear Singing: A Fantasy in C Major". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 June 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=9580, accessed 26 November 2024.]

Storm Jameson, Then We Shall Hear Singing: A Fantasy in C Major

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