By Antonin Artaud
Translated by David Rattray
Afterword by Robert Dewhurst
Semiotext(e) archive □ 3
Antonin Artaud’s censored radio play To pass final judgment on god (1948) became a touchstone for American artists in the early 1960s, after a surreptitiously obtained recording of it began to circulate among poets. For the first time, Semiotext(e) presents David Rattray’s previously unpublished translation of this vital text.
A poet, translator, and Sorbonne-educated scholar of Artaud, Rattray translated the majority of the influential Artaud Anthology published by City Lights Books in 1965, edited by Jack Hirschman. “I wanted to turn my friends on to Artaud and pass a message that had relevance to our lives,” Rattray reflected in a candid talk collected in How I Became One of the Invisible, first published by Semiotext(e) in 1992. For Paule Thévenin, Rattray was Artaud’s ideal translator into English.
After the Artaud Anthology, Rattray extended his intense engagement with Artaud for decades more. He came to concentrate on To pass final judgment on god, presenting semiprivate works based on the play throughout the 1970s and ’80s. Semiotext(e) founding editor Sylvère Lotringer admired Rattray’s live readings of Artaud and especially his rendering of To pass final judgment on god, with its “fierce attack on American militarism.” The typescript presented here was long saved by Lotringer, earmarked for release on a special occasion.
Published in conjunction with Semiotext(e): Desert Islands, a bookshelf residency at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, this limited-edition pamphlet features a facsimile of Rattray’s original typescript, complete with the translator’s handwritten revisions. An afterword by Robert Dewhurst frames the text within Rattray’s career and Artaud’s remarkable reception by the American avant-garde.
52 pp.
By Antonin Artaud
Translated by David Rattray
Afterword by Robert Dewhurst
Semiotext(e) archive □ 3
Antonin Artaud’s censored radio play To pass final judgment on god (1948) became a touchstone for American artists in the early 1960s, after a surreptitiously obtained recording of it began to circulate among poets. For the first time, Semiotext(e) presents David Rattray’s previously unpublished translation of this vital text.
A poet, translator, and Sorbonne-educated scholar of Artaud, Rattray translated the majority of the influential Artaud Anthology published by City Lights Books in 1965, edited by Jack Hirschman. “I wanted to turn my friends on to Artaud and pass a message that had relevance to our lives,” Rattray reflected in a candid talk collected in How I Became One of the Invisible, first published by Semiotext(e) in 1992. For Paule Thévenin, Rattray was Artaud’s ideal translator into English.
After the Artaud Anthology, Rattray extended his intense engagement with Artaud for decades more. He came to concentrate on To pass final judgment on god, presenting semiprivate works based on the play throughout the 1970s and ’80s. Semiotext(e) founding editor Sylvère Lotringer admired Rattray’s live readings of Artaud and especially his rendering of To pass final judgment on god, with its “fierce attack on American militarism.” The typescript presented here was long saved by Lotringer, earmarked for release on a special occasion.
Published in conjunction with Semiotext(e): Desert Islands, a bookshelf residency at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, this limited-edition pamphlet features a facsimile of Rattray’s original typescript, complete with the translator’s handwritten revisions. An afterword by Robert Dewhurst frames the text within Rattray’s career and Artaud’s remarkable reception by the American avant-garde.
52 pp.
