The Alley of Fireflies and Other Stories
- Submitting institution
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University College London
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 15945
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
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- Publisher
- The Song Cave
- ISBN
- 9780998829098
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- February
- Year of publication
- 2019
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This book presents translations into English of two stories by the French writer Raymond Roussel (‘Chiquenaude’ (literally ‘flick of the finger’ but also the name of the main character) and ‘Parmi les noirs’ / ‘Among the Blacks’); of two episodes from the draft material relating to Roussel’s best-known novel, Locus Solus; and of the entire surviving manuscript of an uncompleted novel entitled L’allée aux lucioles / The Alley of Fireflies, begun in 1914.
Of these, only ‘Parmi les noirs’ had previously been translated into English. Ford studied the various surviving manuscripts and typescripts of the Locus Solus drafts as well as the single surviving typescript of L’allée aux lucioles in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. This volume is part of his ongoing project to make available to Anglophone readers Roussel texts either untranslated or unsatisfactorily translated into English. In a 4,000-word introduction he outlines the significance of each of the above items in the context of Roussel’s life and literary development. Footnotes explain allusions and point up lacunae in the original texts. The introduction also examines the peculiar compositional methods that underpin each of these texts. These methods (too complicated to itemize here) make translating Roussel a uniquely challenging process, for they derive from the use of homonyms and double meanings encrypted in the French original.
Ford’s success in disseminating the work of Roussel – whose oeuvre, even in France, is often seen as caviar to the general – can be indicated by the fact that this small press publication inspired a long and thoughtful review in The New Yorker. Ford is the leading English critic and translator of Roussel, and with this volume he once again showcases the work of a writer admired by such as Michel Foucault, Salvador Dalì, Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, and John Ashbery.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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