A previously untranslated gem of Surrealist prose poetry from the
acclaimed French novelist
In 1941, Julien Gracq, newly released from a German prisoner-of-war
camp, wrote a series of prose poems that would come to represent the
only properly Surrealist writings in his oeuvre. Surrealism provided
Gracq with a means of counteracting his disturbing wartime experiences;
his newfound freedom inspired a new freedom of personal expression, and
he gave the collection an appropriate title, Great Liberty: "In the
occult dictionary of Surrealism, the true name of poetry is liberation."
Gracq the poet rather than the novelist is at work here: Surrealist
fireworks lace through bewitching modernist romance, fantasy, black
humor and deadpan absurdism. A later, postwar section entitled "The
Habitable Earth" presents Gracq as visionary traveler exploring Andes
and Flanders and returning to the narrative impulse of his better-known
fiction.
Julien Gracq (1910-2007), born Louis Poirier, is known for such
dreamlike novels as The Castle of Argol, A Dark Stranger, The
Opposing Shore and Balcony in the Forest. He was close to the
Surrealist movement, and André Breton in particular, to whom he devoted
a critical study.
