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Conversations: The Autobiography of Surrealism
The closest Andre Breton has ever come to writing an autobiography, Conversations--based on a series of radio interviews conducted with the founder of Surrealism in 1952--chronicles the entire Surrealist movement as lived from within, tracing the origins and development of Surrealism from the discovery of automatic writing in 1919 to the Surrealists' ideological debate wit
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Paperback
,
264 pages
Published
April 1st 1995
by Marlowe & Company
(first published 1952)
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Community Reviews
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These 1950's era radio interviews reveal the depth and complexity of Breton's thinking and the history and scope of the ongoing surrealist project. Many commentators who have condemned Breton (and surrealists) for sexism, mysticism or artistic irrelevance don't seem in touch with how he and the movement developed as theorists, politically and as creators after WWII. Nor do many critics seem to get that surrealism is not really an art or literary movement, but a multifaceted trajectory or process
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Delightfully interesting, and full of remarkable personalities and of statements that would be fun to quote. Like "Poetry would betray its immemorial mission if historical events, even the most painful ones, pulled it away from its royal road, and made it turn around in circles at a crucial point in this road. Its role is to move ever forward, to explore the field of possibility in all directions, and to emerge---come what may---as a force of emancipation and divination. To do so it has to keep
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This is one of the best books on Surrealism, from an "informal" perspective. Although highly polished "conversations" (Breton wrote and rewrote his responses to interview questions by Andre Parinaud), these interviews still maintain a quality of spontaneity and "conversation," granting an inside perspective into the development of French Surrealism. This book should be on everyone's shelf. Unfortunately, it has been out of print for some time.
A book length Q&A with the legendary Andre Breton. Now, that is a man I would like to sit down with and chit-chat. Highly eccentric and yet was the magnet that attracted a lot of great art and literature. And he only wore green suits!
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André Breton was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist, and is best known as the principal founder of Surrealism. His writings include the
Surrealist Manifesto
(
Manifeste du surréalisme
) of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism".
More about André Breton...
