Ducornet, Rikki
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Working name of US illustrator and author Erica Ducornet (1943- ), resident in various countries, including for a considerable time Canada, now in US; she began to publish work of genre interest with "Aunt Rose & Uncle Freidle" in Other Times for November 1975/January 1976. As a writer whose work seems to drop in on various genres (without, as it were, knocking), she has composed some of her surrealist Fabulations (see also Postmodernism and SF) in a fashion which allows some sf readings to be extracted from the mix, especially in the Alchemy Quartet – comprising The Stain (1984), emblematizing the alchemical element of Earth, Entering Fire (1986), emblematizing Fire, The Fountains of Neptune (1989), emblematizing Water, and The Jade Cabinet (1993), emblematizing Air – which engages in Alternate History and Dystopia tropes to explore four exorbitant family romances, in which Clones and other devices appear and disappear; Lewis Carroll features largely in the tale. Phosphor in Dreamland (1995) fabulates in Magic Realist fashion a parable of Evolution set on a Caribbean Island, where at least one otherwise unknown species has survived the depredations of colonialism. Her stories – most interestingly assembled as The Butcher's Tales (coll 1980; exp 1991; exp vt The Complete Butcher's Tales 1994) – are notable for translating the influence of, among others, Jorge Luis Borges, some of whose work in English translation she has illustrated; she has also illustrated work of Robert Coover. Trafik (2021 chap) is a postmodernist riff on the asteroid-miner Space Opera topos (see Postmodernism and SF). [JC]
Erica DeGré Ducornet
born Canton, New York: 19 April 1943
works (selected)
series
Alchemy Quartet
- The Stain (London: Chatto and Windus/The Hogarth Press, 1984) [Alchemy Quartet: hb/Guy Ducornet]
- Entering Fire (London: Chatto and Windus, 1986) [Alchemy Quartet: hb/Guy Ducornet]
- The Fountains of Neptune (Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart, 1989) [Alchemy Quartet: hb/T M Craan]
- The Jade Cabinet (Normal, Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press, 1993) [Alchemy Quartet: hb/Rosamond Wolff Purcell]
individual titles
- Phosphor in Dreamland (Normal, Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press, 1995) [pb/Rosamond Wolff Purcell]
- Gazelle (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2003) [hb/from Gerald Leslie Brockhurst]
collections and stories
- The Butcher's Tales (Toronto, Ontario: Aya Press, 1980) [coll: chap: hb/Tony Urquhart]
- The Butcher's Tales (London: Atlas Press, 1991) [coll: exp of the above: pb/]
- The Complete Butcher's Tales (Normal, Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press, 1994) [exp vt of the above: hb/Rosamond Wolff Purcell]
- The Butcher's Tales (London: Atlas Press, 1991) [coll: exp of the above: pb/]
- The Word "Desire" (New York: Henry Holt, 1997) [coll: hb/Rosamond Purcell]
- The One Marvelous Thing (Champaign, Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press, 2008) [coll: illus/pb/T Motley]
- Trafik (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Coffee House Press, 2021) [novella: chap: pb/Sarah Evenson]
nonfiction
- The Monstrous and the Marvelous (San Francisco, California: City Lights Publishers, 1999) [nonfiction: pb/]
about the author
- G N Forester and M J Nicholls, editors. Verbivoracious Press Festschrift Volume 4: Rikki Ducornet (Singapore: Verbivoracious Press, 2015) [nonfiction: anth: in the publisher's Verbivoracious Press Festschrift series: hb/nonpictorial]
links
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