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 Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1942

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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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 19 April 2024.]

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