Douglas Anthony Cooper on Amnesia, Memory, and Transmedia Storytelling

Douglas Anthony Cooper's novel 'Amnesia' was first published in 1992 and has been reissued by D Editore in 2018 as part of a broader literary recovery project. In an interview, Cooper discusses how his approach to memory has shifted from analog to digital, noting that the ancient Greek memory palace metaphor has been replaced by the internet. He acknowledges being influenced more by architects, artists, and experimental performers than by writers, citing a collaboration with a radical theater and dance director in Montreal that helped him think in terms of explosive image sequences rather than traditional psychological or narrative development. Cooper also reveals that 'Amnesia' was the first book in publishing history to have a book trailer, an idea conceived by his publicist. His upcoming novel, 'Aphasia,' explores themes of pornography and despair, inspired by Don Giovanni but featuring a young female digital pornographer who creates terrifying images and destroys her subjects. It is nearly finished and will be published next year by D Editore. A subsequent novel, less serious and competing with Oscar Wilde in aesthetic vanity, is set in Rome and Florence. Cooper reflects on art as an obol for immortality in the war against oblivion, and on the Oulipo group's influence on his work, particularly the constraint-based narrative structures shared with architecture.