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Ford has not just translated but has also deciphered the New Impressions of Africa. In his own words, the poem is nothing less than a 'brain-teaser'. His translation is, as he concedes, less concise than the original, but not by much, and perhaps inevitably so. Roussel is so precise and sharp that his words seem almost psychically ergonomic. What Ford does brightly is recreate Roussel's cleverness and wit. In short, Ford has successfully translated what is nothing less than a sort of charming anomaly of modern literature. Rather than distracting from his work, the explanatory notes encourage the reader to appreciate Roussel. This generous clothbound, bilingual edition, which includes the original illustrations that Roussel commissioned, would even have pleased the author himself. -- William Heyward, Australian Book Review --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Poet, novelist, playwright, and chess enthusiast, Raymond Roussel (1877-1933) was one of the French belle poque's most compelling literary figures. During his lifetime, Roussel's work was vociferously championed by the surrealists, but never achieved the widespread acclaim for which he yearned. New Impressions of Africa is undoubtedly Roussel's most extraordinary work. Since its publication in 1932, this weird and wonderful poem has slowly gained cult status, and its admirers have included Salvador Dal--who dubbed it the most "ungraspably poetic" work of the era--Andr Breton, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Michel Foucault, Kenneth Koch, and John Ashbery.
Roussel began writing New Impressions of Africa in 1915 while serving in the French Army during the First World War and it took him seventeen years to complete. "It is hard to believe the immense amount of time composition of this kind of verse requires," he later commented. Mysterious, unnerving, hilarious, haunting, both rigorously logical and dizzyingly sublime, it is truly one of the hidden masterpieces of twentieth-century modernism.
This bilingual edition of New Impressions of Africa presents the original French text and the English poet Mark Ford's lucid, idiomatic translation on facing pages. It also includes an introduction outlining the poem's peculiar structure and evolution, notes explaining its literary and historical references, and the fifty-nine illustrations anonymously commissioned by Roussel, via a detective agency, from Henri-A. Zo.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.Browse and search another edition of this book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There must be few books as good as this one,
This review is from: New Impressions of Africa (Paperback)
What a magnificent book. Definitely one of the most astonishing accomplishments in literature I have ever seen. This could be the one book I would take for a desert island, and it will be with us for centuries, just like Homer's Odyssey or Dante's Divine Comedy. It's not the result of chance that this book was considered by Duchamp, Dali and others a masterpiece of modern literature.
This edition is beautifully accomplished, according to the first edition. Atlas Press is known for the care they devote to their books, and this one is a good example of that. Undoubtedly money well spent.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eccentric genius,
By Poly Gog - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: New Impressions of Africa (Facing Pages) (Hardcover)
Yes, he was an eccentric genius. And we just love him. Pardon me if i send a flippant (and okay, weak) review for the uninitiated:
Can we, by chance (and here one wonders in chancy prose ((never poetry, as the unlucky literary aspirant attempts to deflect (((although in deflecting , the glint reflects))) meaning from form)) whether the poet is oft misunderstood), ever find ourselves in flight from art? Ach... he had time, space and money to create his works - each publication different in style and form. So have many people, but they didn't produce works like this, in obsessive intensity. Mark Ford has done a fine fine job here. This complex work has been lucidly transliterated, and finely organised, considering the structure of the work is as important(?) as the writing. |
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