Michel Leiris Libri

The second volume of Michel Leiris's hugely influential four-volume autobiographical essay, available to English-language readers in a brilliant and sensitive translation by Lydia Davis

A dazzling translation by Lydia Davis of the first volume of Michel Leiris's masterwork, perhaps the most important French autobiographical enterprise of the twentieth century

The fourth and final volume of Michel Leiris’s renowned autobiography, now available in English for the first time, translated by Richard Sieburth

In this novel of extremes, whose author's distaste for 'things as they are' includes the whole idea of 'novels', Michel Leiris pursues his heroine, Aurora, through a visionary landscape shot through with catastrophe and disaster. His lucid and baroque language, with its incredible descriptions and ever more extravagant metaphors, is only just able to maintain the pursuit. Leiris participated in the most important French literary and cultural groups of his time. He was closely associated with the Surrealists, later with Georges Bataille and Jean-Paul Sartre.

A major publishing event: the third volume of Michel Leiris's renowned autobiography, now available in English for the first time in a brilliant translation by Lydia Davis

Short fragments and essays that explore how a seemingly irrelevant aesthetic detail may cause the eruption of sublimity within the mundane.

Recognized for its cultural significance, this work contributes to the foundational knowledge of civilization. Scholars have chosen it for its importance, highlighting its role in shaping understanding and perspectives within various fields.

"Not only one of the frankest of autobiographies, but also a brilliantly written book, Leiris' Manhood mingles memories, philosophic reflections, sexual revelation, meditations on bullfighting, and the life-long progress of self-discovery."—Washington Post Book World "Leiris writes to appall, and thereby to receive from his readers the gift of a strong emotion—the emotion needed to defend himself against the indignation and disgust he expects to arouse in his readers."—Susan Sontag, New York Review of Books

Útlá knížka, jíž se Lou Andreas-Salomé snažila roku 1927 vyrovnat s předčasnou smrtí Reinera Marii Rilka, není ani pouhou reminiscencí jejich mnohaletého přátelského vztahu, ani biografií v běžném slova smyslu. Na podkladě básníkových dopisů z let 1897-1926 nám autorka předkládá Rilkův portrét, fascinující hluboce jasnozřivými vhledy do problematiky umělcova nitra, které ji přivádějí až k úvahám o vztahu člověka k umění všeobecně a o dilematech, jež vhánějí tvůrčího člověka na práh života a smrti.

Im Spiegel der Tauromachie gleitet Leiris Beschreibung der Corrida, des Stierkampfes in der Arena, zwanglos in eine Schilderung nahezu heiliger Zeremonien über, in die Beschwörung der mit Verderbnis sich paarenden Schönheit, in einen Versuch über den Tod und die Liebe.