High Solitude

Author: Léon-Paul Fargue

Translator: Rainer J. Hanshe

Publisher: Contra Mundum Press (2024)

Heir of symbolism, father of surrealism, extraordinary verbal inventor, Léon-Paul Fargue reveals himself to be a visionary in his prose poems. He calls High Solitude a “diorama of states of the soul.”

In this work, originally published in 1941, Fargue revives both the night of prehistoric times and that of the end of the world. And, between the two, this fantastic universe also: the Paris that he so loved and of which he was the unforgettable Piéton. Paris, whose secret geography he traces, in the company of the ghosts of those who were dear to him. The Paris of white nights, stations, and cafes.

But every road, every street, leads to this high, unique place: solitude. “I work at my solitude, searching to guide it in the sea of insomnia where the long line of the dead has thrown us...”