{"id":226,"date":"2021-03-14T13:07:18","date_gmt":"2021-03-14T13:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/?page_id=226"},"modified":"2023-01-07T14:27:49","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T14:27:49","slug":"woman-in-the-plural","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/translations\/woman-in-the-plural\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman in the Plural"},"content":{"rendered":"

(buy the book)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

“A snapshot of the European avant garde when everything was up for grabs.” \u2014 Steve Hanson, Manchester Review of Books<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Twisted Spoon Press, 2021 \/ 198 pages \/ $21<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

About the book<\/h4>\n

Translated by Stephan Delbos and Tereza Novick\u00e1<\/p>\n

In the summer of 1935, V\u00edt\u011bzslav Nezval, already one of the most celebrated Czech poets of his generation, embarked on a period of manic creativity that would result in three volumes of poetry written and published in a two-year span (1935-37), mirrored by three volumes of memoir-like poetic prose. These collections would not only reshape Czech poetry, blending approaches developed by the French Surrealists with national cultural sensibilities and political concerns, taken together they are among the highest achievements of the interwar avant-garde. Woman in the Plural<\/i> (1936), the first volume in this loose trilogy, adopted “objective chance” as its modus operandi (whereas the third and final volume, The Absolute Gravedigger<\/i><\/a> (1937), was guided by the paranoiac-critical method).<\/p>\n

Appearing in English translation for the first time, Woman in the Plural<\/i> displays Nezval\u2019s prodigious talents in a variety of forms, styles, and genres as he spins images of the female form like a zoetrope to create novel and hallucinatory ways of conceiving woman\u2019s mythical, divine, and creative power. It is an eclectic collection that blends profound free verse, at times reading like a cascade of automatic writing, with pages from Nezval\u2019s dream journal, an exuberant set of Surrealist exercises, and a full-length play of chance encounters with \u201ca woman like any other,\u201d all the while addressing the social and political uncertainties of the 1930s. Led off by Karel Teige\u2019s original collages from the first edition, Woman in the Plural<\/i> is a vibrant and volatile tour de force from one of the greatest European artists of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

Reviews<\/h4>\n

“I found this a fascinating collection of assorted pieces \u2013 prose, poetry, drama. The imagery is thoroughly surrealistic so do not look for any rational meaning. There isn\u2019t any nor is there intended to be any. Indeed, that is what makes the collection so interesting.”\u00a0\u2014 The Modern Novel<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

“This whole section [“Pages from a Diary”] is a snapshot of the european avant garde when everything was up for grabs, it was all to play for. They were writing to each other across the continent, hooking up, buying each other\u2019s publications. In this section, the night-time dreams overlap with the accounts of daytime.” \u2014 Steve Hanson, Manchester Review of Books<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(buy the book) “A snapshot of the European avant garde when everything was up for grabs.” \u2014 Steve Hanson, Manchester Review of Books About the book Translated by Stephan Delbos and Tereza Novick\u00e1 In the summer of 1935, V\u00edt\u011bzslav Nezval, already one of the most celebrated Czech poets of his generation, embarked on a period … Continue reading Woman in the Plural<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":323,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-226","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t