The Autobiography of Surrealism

The surrealist movement, launched by André Breton's 1924 manifesto declaring his quest for the fusion of dream and reality, has flourished as one of the most important, controversial, and pervasive of modern movements, one that has affected the course of literature, the visual arts, even politics. Marcel Jean, an active participant in the movement, has undertaken in this brilliant anthology to let the surrealists tell their own story, and has woven carefully selected and newly translated extracts from their writings into a narrative format that guides the reader through a fascinating maze of poetry, fiction, drama, polemics, and other documents.