| 50 Drawings to Murder Magic Contributor(s): Artaud, Antonin (Author), Nicholson-Smith, Donald (Translator), Grossman, Évelyne (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0857423509 ISBN-13: 9780857423504 Publisher: Seagull Books OUR PRICE: $18.90 Product Type: Paperback Published: February 2016 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | European - French - Performing Arts | Theater - History & Criticism - Art | Criticism & Theory |
| Dewey: 848.912 |
| Physical Information: 0.4" H x 8.3" W x 11" (0.93 lbs) 96 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A poet, philosopher, essayist, playwright, actor, and director, Antonin Artaud was a visionary writer and a major influence within and beyond the French avant-garde. A key text for understanding his thought and his appeal, 50 Drawings to Murder Magic is rooted in the nine years Artaud spent in mental asylums, struggling with schizophrenia and the demonic, persecutory visions it unleashed. Set down in a dozen exercise books written between 1946 and 1948, these pieces trace Artaud's struggle to escape a personal hell that extends far beyond the walls of asylums and the dark magicians he believed ran them. The first eleven notebooks are filled with fragments of writing and extraordinary sketches: totemic figures, pierced bodies, and enigmatic machines, some revealing the marks of a trembling hand, others carefully built up from firm, forceful pencil strokes. The twelfth notebook, completed two months before Artaud's death in 1948, changes course: it's an extraordinary text on the loss of magic to the demonic--the piece that gives the book its title. "Artaud matters," wrote John Simon in the Saturday Review years ago. Nearly seventy years after his death, that remains true--perhaps more than ever. |
Contributor Bio(s): Artaud, Antonin: - Antonin Artaud (1895-1948) was the author of many books, most famously The Theater and Its Double.Nicholson-Smith, Donald: - Donald Nicholson-Smith is an English-born translator who lives in New York City. |