Presented as a collection of articles about apocryphal artworks, exhibitions, books and other cultural phenomena, "Sunsets and Dogshits" follows the convention of a "collected writings" book. Most pieces adopt a well-recognized format - for example a catalogue essay for an exhibition, a book review or an item of sports correspondence - but at the same time they incorporate incongruous elements or attempt to see things from inverted perspectives. For example, "The Hudson Variation" is a review of a book about chess hooliganism, while "Whipping Boys" imagines the criminal memoir written from the view point of professional victims, and 'The George Carnegie Award' is a critical review of the writers shortlisted for the best use of a semicolon in the English language. Witty, trenchantly funny, flittingly flirting with genres as diverse as poetry, philosophy, biography, cookery books, volumes on municipal architecture, government investigations into national disasters and technical manuals, "Sunsets and Dogshits" occupies a unique place in modern fiction and is destined to become a classic of its kind.

About the Author

Saun Ashton lectures and teaches at Wimbledon School of Art and Canterbury School of Art. He has a postgraduate degree in sculpture from the Royal College of Art, and a Ph.D. in art from Goldsmiths College. Whilst writing his Ph.D., Ashton came to the conclusion that artworks can be divided into two categories: those that exist to be experienced and those that exist to be written about. It was then he began to consider the notion of an artwork that didn't actually exist at all, that could be experienced only through a written appraisal. He soon expanded the meaning of the term 'artwork' to include cultural phenomena of all kinds.

Reviews

"As comically entertaining as they are wickedly subversive . . . The best of his writing brings the prolix wit of Monty Python to the disturbing dystopias of Will Self." "--The Independent"