The last writings of Antonin Artaud published in English and brought together in one edition for the first time.
Artaud spent the last years of his life, from his incarceration in the psychiatric hospital of Rodez to the last month in freedom until his death in March 1948, working and writing. This collection includes numerous poems, radio works, texts on his drawings, vocal improvisations, letters, and fragments, some of which have never or only partially been published in English.
Artaud's late writings intensify and accumulate the author's most urgent preoccupations: the transmutation of the human anatomy into a skeletal configuration without organs; the imminent threat from malevolent assassins to steal his semen and kill him; his hatred of psychiatry and all religions and the necessity for a new and insurgent creation of art, dance, and vocal cacophony.
Including additional new translations, this issue edited by
Stephen Barber finishes the project by American poet and translator Clayton Eshleman and his collaborators to translate and publish these works in English in their entirety.
French dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, and theater director Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) is one of the seminal figures of twentieth century writing, art and sound experimentation, known especially for his work with the
Surrealist movement, his performance theories, his asylum incarcerations, and his artworks which have been exhibited in major exhibitions, at New York's MoMA and many other art-museums.
