Speaking East

The Strange and Enchanted Life of Isidore Isou

Speaking East
Andrew Hussey
RRP:
NZ$ 62.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 50.39
Hardback
h235 x 159mm - 324pg
13 Sep 2021 UK
International import eta 10-19 days
9781789144925
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
A vibrant account of both the sensuous cultural scene of postwar Paris and the life of an alluring icon of modern art. Isidore Isou was a young Jew in wartime Bucharest who barely survived the Romanian Holocaust. He made his way to Paris, where, in 1945, he founded the avant-garde movement Lettrism, described as the missing link between Dada, Surrealism, Situationism, and May ' 68. In Speaking East, Andrew Hussey presents a colorful picture of the postwar Left Bank, where Lettrist fists flew in avantgarde punch-ups in Jazz clubs and cafes, and where Isou-as sexy and as charismatic as the young Elvis-gathered around him a group of hooligan disciples who argued, drank, and had sex with the Parisian intellectual elite. This is a vibrant account of the life and times of a pivotal figure in the history of modern art.
"Isou' s life is at once tragic and farcical: a whirling reprise of all of the twentieth century' s artistic avantgardes played out against the backdrop of Paris' s Left Bank in its heyday. Hussey is the ideal chronicler, and his biography, with its exuberant prose, both channels Isou' s restless creativity and positions it within the main currents of postwar French thought. Essential reading. " -- Will Self, author of "The Quantity Theory of Insanity" and "Umbrella" "A sympathetic account of an extraordinary life. Hussey has the depth of historical understanding necessary to do justice both to Isidore Isou' s glamorous, sometimes absurd, life as a hero of the Left Bank and to the horrors of the Romanian Holocaust he had escaped. This is an expertly told story about Paris, Europe, and the interplay of private passion and public trauma. " -- Sebastian Faulks, author of "Birdsong"
Andrew Hussey was formerly dean and professor at the University of London in Paris. He has written for the New Statesman, Observer, and New York Times, and his books include Paris: The Secret History and The French Intifada. He lives in Paris.
Status: No local stock, title imported to order
ISBN-13: 9781789144925
Published: 13 Sep 2021
Published In: United Kingdom
Imprint: Reaktion Books
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Format: Hardback
Height: 235mm
Width: 159mm
Pages: 324

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