R.J. Dent's Blog, page 9
August 15, 2022
Book Launch – The Songs of Maldoror
R J Dent is launching his new English translation of The Songs of Maldoror, illustrated by Karolina Urbaniak, with an introduction by Jeremy Reed and a foreword by Audrey Szasz, at the Infinity Land Press multimedia event – Unnatural Encounters – at 56 Brook Street, Mayfair, London W1K 5NE, on Saturday, 1st October, 2022.The line-up includes performances, launches, exhibitions, screenings and readings from some of the most dangerous, challenging and confrontational writers, artists, musicians and performance artists working today.
Event details:
Doors open 15:00
Event starts 16:00
MICHAEL SALERNO (film screening with an introduction)
Break
HECTOR MEINHOF (performance)
STEVE FINBOW (reading)
RJ DENT & KAROLINA URBANIAK (THE SONGS OF MALDOROR book launch/reading + multimedia)
AUDREY SZASZ(reading)
Break
MARTIN BLADH (DES book launch/performance)
SHANE LEVENE (reading)
THOMAS MOORE (guest reading)
PHILIP BEST (reading)
Break
JUKKA SIIKALA (film screening with an introduction)
JACK SARGEANT (reading)
DEVIN HORAN (film screening)
Event ends
Doors close 23:00
Tickets are available from the Infinity Land Press website at this link: https://www.infinitylandpress.com/product-page/unnatural-encounters-event
July 6, 2022
Infinity Land Press Multi-Media Event – 1st October 2022
Infinity Land Press has arranged a multi-media event in a spacious and conveniently-located venue in Mayfair, London.
The event will take place on the 1st of October 2022, and will begin with a book sale and an art exhibition, followed by an evening of readings, screenings, book launches and performances.
So far, there are confirmed appearances by: Audrey Szasz, Philip Best, Jukka Siikala, Jack Sargeant, Steve Finbow, Michael Salerno, R J Dent, Thomas Moore (guest author), Martin Blahd and Karolina Urbaniak.
https://www.infinitylandpress.com/
March 23, 2022
Alfred Jarry’s Speculations, translated from the French by R J Dent
Alfred Jarry spent his brief and turbulent life experimenting with genres of fiction. In his last few years, he created a new fictional form: the absurdist speculative essay. R J Dent’s new English translation of Speculations contains 68 of Jarry’s essays, originally printed between 1901 and 1904 as a series, ‘Spéculations’, in the French journal Le Revue Blanche.
In Jarry’s darkly comic collection of surrealist and satirical prose pieces, the renowned author deploys his characteristic satirical eye and dark humour to devastating effect. These essays range in tone from the wildly comic to the deeply tragic and cover a diversity of subjects, ranging from French Trees to Cannibalism. For Jarry, nothing is sacred; everything is worthy material for his surreal satire; the Passion is presented as a sporting event; buses are the prey of big game hunters, and even the Queen is licked from behind.
Book details: https://blackscatbooks.com/2022/03/23/jarry-lives/
Available in the UK here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09W78YV4G
And in the USA here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09W78YV4G
February 5, 2022
Charles Baudelaire – Selected Erotic Poems – A Review by Amanda Hodgson
Selected Erotic Poems
Charles Baudelaire
Translated from the French by RJ Dent
The Godfather of Gloom, Charles Baudelaire, gets the R J Dent treatment in a translation that brings new life and suppleness to his words.
Baudelaire is closed curtains in daytime, candles, overflowing ashtrays and small, intimate parties where small, intimate events occur; as in these closing lines from “Jewels”:
‘And as the candle-light prepared to die,
and its low flames gently lit the chamber,
each time there sounded a contented sigh,
our warm flesh blushed the colour of amber.’
Ennui-ridden existentialist Baudelaire gives us some dreamy transporting moments before we are mired in the sludge of sin once more. This is starkly drawn in ‘I love the memory’, where an Elysium in which ‘no shame was caused by sensuality’, men and women were naked and ‘heaven lovingly caressed their skin’ is firmly of the past. In trying to imagine such times in the present ‘a cold and gloomy feeling envelopes his soul’. It sounds more than cold and gloom. Cold and gloom is Britain pre-global warming most days. Cold and gloom is not
‘a black, terrifying tableau:
monstrosities crying out for their clothes;
twisted bodies, fat uglies needing masks,
the crooked, wasted, flabby, the grotesque –
who some practical god, serene and calm,
forced into metal clothes when they were born,
and every one as pale as candle wax,
who gnaw at their debauchery and sex
who drag with them their parents’ stupid vice
of bringing hideous progeny to life.’
The reader can feel the sun and smell the tamarind in ‘Exotic Perfume”, where Baudelaire is once more transported from the bleak present by a woman’s body. Baudelaire portrays women as representing good and evil on a metaphysical plane. I am filled with ennui over Madonna/Whore tropes, but the imagery delights.
In “Hair” the woman of the poem is the sea. The poet dives in:
‘Into this black sea where other seas swell,
I’ll dip my lovingly rapturous head
and then, caressed by rolling waves, I will
find you again, idleness that’s fertile
enough to lull me into a sweet bed.’
There is much to delight in this translation. The rich, evocative imagery lends these poems to being read on silken bedding while languorously consuming peeled grapes. This translation serves as both introduction and companion to the works of Charles Baudelaire.
Charles Baudelaire – Selected Erotic Poems
Translated into English by R J Dent
Published by New Urge Editions
R J Dent’s official website book details and links:
New Urge Editions book details and links:
https://blackscatbooks.com/2021/11/14/banned-in-france/November 26, 2021
Jean-Fucque (Le Cocque) – Adapted by R J Dent from a Story by Louis Aragon
A BORN-AGAIN SURREALIST CLASSIC
Watch out! – Here comes Jean-Fucque (Le Cocque).
Inspired by & loosely adapted from Louis Aragon’s obscure surrealist text, R J Dent’s 21st century rendition is an absurdist tale of Jean-Fucque Le Cocque, a large, disembodied penis and his Parisian adventures, including his satisfactory encounters with female passengers on the Metro, his small room in a hotel frequented by prostitutes, and his reason for buying a hat.
This is No. 22 in the Pocket Erotica series.
Product Details:
Publisher: New Urge / Pocket Erotica
Publication Date: November 24, 2021
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 131
ISBN-10: 1737943042
ISBN-13: 978-1737943044
Item Weight: 5 ounces (141.74 grams)
Item Dimensions: 4 x 0.33 x 6 inches (10.16 x 0.84 x 15.24 cm)
A description of the book and purchase links via the publisher can be found here
To buy at Amazon.com, the link is here
To buy at Amazon.co.uk, the link is here
R J Dent’s official website is here
November 15, 2021
Charles Baudelaire’s Selected Erotic Poems, translated from the French by R J Dent
Charles Baudelaire’s decadent erotic poems caused a scandal when they first appeared in 1857. Both author and publisher were prosecuted for unveiling works that were ‘an insult to public decency’, and six poems in the collection were suppressed.
These so-called indecent works (banned in France until 1949) were: Lesbos; Condemned Women: Delphine and Hippolyta; Lethe; To One Who Is Too Happy; Jewels; and The Metamorphosis of the Vampire— and all are included in this Pocket Erotica edition, plus 20 more.
Selected Erotic Poems
Charles Baudelaire
Translated from the French by R J Dent
Pocket Erotica No. 21, New Urge Editions
ISBN 978-1737943037
Format: Paperback chapbook
Pages: 64
Charles Baudelaire’s Selected Erotic Poems is available here
Details are available here
November 6, 2021
The Self-Made Cuckold by the Marquis de Sade
The Self-Made Cuckold
The Marquis de Sade
Translated into English by R J Dent
The Marquis de Sade’s The Self-Made Cuckold, translated from the French by R J Dent, is a rare work sans the notorious content Sade is infamous for. Indeed, it contains no savagely violent orgies nor flagellation. This little gem is — by comparison to The 120 Days of Sodom — libertine light and amusingly smutty. There is also a strain of feminism running through the book.
R J Dent’s brand-new English translation of the Marquis de Sade’s The Self-Made Cuckold, written by Sade when he was a prisoner in the Bastille in 1788, is now available as a paperback chapbook as #20 in the Pocket Erotica Series from New Urge Editions.
Product details:
Title: The Self-Made Cuckold
Author: the Marquis de Sade (D.A.F. de Sade)
Translator: R J Dent
Publisher: Pocket Erotica/New Urge Editions/Black Scat Books
Publication Date: November 2021
Format: Paperback
Pages: 60
Dimensions: 6” x 4” x 0.15” (15.24cm x 10.16 x 0.381cm)
Weight: 3.2 ounces (90.7185 grams)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1737371199
ISBN-10: 1737371197
The Self-Made Cuckold is available from New Urge Editions here: SADE STRIKES AGAIN
or from Amazon.com here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1737371197
or from Amazon.co.uk here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-Made-Cuckold-Marquis-Sade/dp/1737371197/ref=monarch_sidesheet
October 24, 2021
Some Thoughts on the Novel by the Marquis de Sade
R J Dent’s modern English translation of the Marquis de Sade’s insightful and thought-provoking essay on literature and writing is now available in a bilingual edition from Oneiros Books.
Product details:
Title: Some Thoughts on the Novel
Author: the Marquis de Sade (D.A.F. de Sade)
Translator: R J Dent
Publisher: Oneiros Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 112
Dimensions: 9” x 6” (23cm x 15cm)
Language: English and French (bilingual edition)
ISBN: 978-1-4717-9695-1
Some Thoughts on the Novel is available from Oneiros Books at: https://blackwormmedia.co.uk/phantasms?fbclid=IwAR28mgauI7VHnQ42mOOhfTAQSJv9MjjEMOki8eT-9L1ZZbTFvDTijRm3Fas
R J Dent’s website is at www.rjdent.com
September 12, 2021
Retaliation by the Marquis de Sade
Translated into English by R J Dent
Published by New Urge, an imprint of Black Scat Books.
From the back cover:
Did the notorious author of Justine and The 120 Days of Sodom have a sense of humor?
Indeed he did, and this short story shows a side of Sade few have seen. Here is a witty, libertine tale, free of flagellation and sexual perversion. Instead, it reveals a husband’s adultery and a wife’s clever “retaliation.”
This is decidedly a feminist text, and it punctures the double standard still infecting relations between men and women.
Translated from the French by R J Dent.
The Marquis de Sade’s Retaliation is available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1737371170/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=retaliation+de+sade&qid=1631468646&sr=8-1
August 20, 2021
The Celestial Bandit, Edited by Jordan A. Rothaker
The cover and the contents page of The Celestial Bandit, a 175th anniversary anthology of writing about Isidore Ducasse/Le Comte de Lautréamont, edited by Jordan A. Rothaker, and published by KERNPUNKT Press
The book includes contributions from Audrey Szasz, Jeremy Reed, Golnoosh Nour, Callum Leckie, Chris Kelso, Stewart Home, Steve Finbow, Louis Armand and Mark Amerika.
The link to the publisher’s website for details of the anthology is here:
http://www.kernpunktpress.com/store/p29/celestialbandit.html
