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It was published in a surrealist journal in '44, then came out in book form decades later. Down Below is her memoir recounting the entire harrowing experience.Ĭarrington wrote the memoir between 1942-3, a few years after she was on the other side of the nightmare. Her deep sorrow soon drove her to a descent into madness and she was eventually committed to a mental institution in Spain. When the outbreak of the Second World War resulted in Ernst being arrested by Germans and confined to a concentration camp, Carrington was left alone. They eventually moved to France together, where they set up home and led an idyllic life together. The two met and fell for each other in the late 1930s when Carrington was an art student still only in her late teens. Max Ernst was Leonora Carrington’s first great love. Left: Leonora Carrington - The Hearing Trumpet / Right: Leonora Carrington - Down Below The Memoir Following are breakdowns of memorable literary works of hers in four different genres. Through her singular novel The Hearing Trumpet, her many dazzling short stories, her memoir Down Below, and even in a children's book she authored, she challenges us while amusing us with the same themes and topics that make her paintings so memorable: magical realism, feminism, alchemy, madness, humor, multiple overlapping realities, folklore, fairy tales, reverence of the animal world, witchcraft, nonconformity, a preference for worlds built from imagination, even when (maybe especially when) they take nonsensical paths, over dull actuality.Īnd she was diverse as a writer. And what will be of interest to those who know her visual art but not her literary efforts is that many of the same interests, ideas, and life philosophies of Carrington's that manifested themselves in the former, are also apparent in the latter. While much better known artistically for her surrealist paintings, Carrington as a writer merits much more attention than she’s gotten for that creative work. The fact is, Carrington’s literary efforts are reminiscent of Carroll’s in being highly original, wildly imaginative texts that can stretch readers’ minds while providing them with entertainment.

Aberth mentions more than once that Carrington treasured Carroll’s written work. In her superb 2004 book, Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy, and Art, author Susan L. Carrington (1917-2011) would have liked to know that her novel The Hearing Trumpet, a collection of her short stories, and a few other of her books exist in such close proximity to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and The Hunting of the Snark.

In my book collection (alphabetized by author, natch) titles by Leonora Carrington stand next to a few by Lewis Carroll.