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A Certain Plume

Part of NYRB Poets

Author Henri Michaux

Preface by Lawrence Durrell

Afterword by Richard Sieburth

Translated by Richard Sieburth

Paperback

$16.00 US

New York Review Books | NYRB Poets

4.4"W x 7"H x 0.6"D | 7 oz | 40 per carton

On sale May 22, 2018 | 240 Pages | 9781681372266

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A bilingual edition of the most famous of Henri Michaux's poetry collections, now in a new translation from the French.

The figure of Plume preoccupied the great Belgian poet Henri Michaux throughout his career. Plume, meaning feather or pen, is a character who drifts from one thing to another, losing shape, taking new forms, at perpetual risk from reality. He is a personification of the imagination as subject to innumerable pratfalls and disgraces, and yet indestructible for all that. In this new bilingual edition, with translations by Richard Sieburth, the entire Plume cycle appears for the first time in English in the form in which Michaux originally published it.

This bilingual edition includes the original French versions of each poem.

Henri Michaux (1899–1984) was born in Namur, Belgium, the son of a lawyer. After contemplating careers in the church and in medicine, Michaux enlisted in the French merchant marine and traveled around the world. These travels inspired his first two books, Ecuador and A Barbarian in Asia. After settling in Paris, Michaux devoted himself to writing and painting and was soon known all around France—and eventually the world—for his work in both disciplines. View titles by Henri Michaux

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“Plume is a modern pilgrim, continually on the quest, in a world which resembles ours but also appears to be the set of a nightmare slapstick. And Plume resembles us as much as he resembles K., Jack Wilton, Charlie Brown, Shuman the Human, the Man Without Qualities, and all those seekers who, when they finally get a chance to address the wise one, are rewarded with a resounding slap in the face.” —Luc Sante

“Monsieur Plume, the sardonic, off-beat, off-center reflection of his author, a character equally indebted to Charlie Chaplin and Franz Kafka, is back. Sieburth’s stunning translation gets all the subtle humor, all the wacky absurdity, and all the tragicomic pathos of Michaux’s original. An essential moment in absurdist aesthetics and a sheer delight to read.” —Cole Swensen

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