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The Tribe
Between 1952 and 1954, Jean-Michel Mension haunted Saint-Germain-des-Prés as a member of the legendary Letterist International, direct progenitor of the Situationist International. In a series of conversations, Mension recounts this very particular vie de bohème whiled away with Guy Debord and a rogue's gallery of hard drinkers and thinkers.
The Tribe is a rare, vivid tour of a moment and milieu barely noticed at the time by the tourists who flocked to the Left Bank for a glimpse of Sartre & Co. The rich iconography includes many of Ed van der Elsken's celebrated photographs of "the tribe" and a trove of Letterist leaflets and posters. A rare, vivid tour of a moment and milieu barely noticed at the time by the tourists flocking to Saint-Germain for a glimpse of Sartre & Co.
"The Tribe relates the Parisian wanderings of a heterogeneous group of individuals who cultivated laziness and revolt, alcohol and talk, drift and chance, creative hopes and encounters . . . in quest of a Rimbaldian derangement of all the senses, of détournement of art and daily life in the defiance of order, by vandalism, by deliquency, but also by an altogether contemporary quest for a supersession of Marxism." —Le Monde libertaire
""In his oral memoir The Tribe, Jean-Michel Mension provides a useful context for [Guy] Debord's particular estrangement from postwar modernity. Mension reveals a multicultural dimension that is rarely explored in the burgeoning literature on this group . . . " —McKenzie Wark, Bookforum
"Mension, who began submitting writing to the Letterist journal at 18, recounts life in this fascinating, emphatically improvident, quasi-anarchist subculture, delivering vivid anecdotes and a still-fresh scoff-law sensibility." —Publishers Weekly
Jean-Michel Mension (1934 - 2006) misspent his youth in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the early 1950s before joining the Communist Party in 1962 and the Ligue Communiste in 1968. The Tribe is Mension's first book; he published his second in 2001: Le Temps gage: aventures politiques et artistique d'un irrégulier à Paris.
The Tribe is a rare, vivid tour of a moment and milieu barely noticed at the time by the tourists who flocked to the Left Bank for a glimpse of Sartre & Co. The rich iconography includes many of Ed van der Elsken's celebrated photographs of "the tribe" and a trove of Letterist leaflets and posters. A rare, vivid tour of a moment and milieu barely noticed at the time by the tourists flocking to Saint-Germain for a glimpse of Sartre & Co.
"The Tribe relates the Parisian wanderings of a heterogeneous group of individuals who cultivated laziness and revolt, alcohol and talk, drift and chance, creative hopes and encounters . . . in quest of a Rimbaldian derangement of all the senses, of détournement of art and daily life in the defiance of order, by vandalism, by deliquency, but also by an altogether contemporary quest for a supersession of Marxism." —Le Monde libertaire
""In his oral memoir The Tribe, Jean-Michel Mension provides a useful context for [Guy] Debord's particular estrangement from postwar modernity. Mension reveals a multicultural dimension that is rarely explored in the burgeoning literature on this group . . . " —McKenzie Wark, Bookforum
"Mension, who began submitting writing to the Letterist journal at 18, recounts life in this fascinating, emphatically improvident, quasi-anarchist subculture, delivering vivid anecdotes and a still-fresh scoff-law sensibility." —Publishers Weekly
Jean-Michel Mension (1934 - 2006) misspent his youth in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the early 1950s before joining the Communist Party in 1962 and the Ligue Communiste in 1968. The Tribe is Mension's first book; he published his second in 2001: Le Temps gage: aventures politiques et artistique d'un irrégulier à Paris.
- GenresArt
145 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 25, 2025
Two short passages from The Tribe:
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“Yes, in fact it was Serge Berna who cooked the thing up. Along with a few of his Letterist pals. You might say they were the crème de la crème of the neighborhood – the failed of the failed. The had written a leaflet called ‘Ratés’ [Failures] that said: ‘They portray us as DUDS, and that is what we are. We are nothing, we mean it, NOTHING AT ALL, and we intend to be of NO USE.”
*
“I myself did have a notion about the eighth art, about the transcendence of art: I believed that the only real art was life itself.”
*
*
“Yes, in fact it was Serge Berna who cooked the thing up. Along with a few of his Letterist pals. You might say they were the crème de la crème of the neighborhood – the failed of the failed. The had written a leaflet called ‘Ratés’ [Failures] that said: ‘They portray us as DUDS, and that is what we are. We are nothing, we mean it, NOTHING AT ALL, and we intend to be of NO USE.”
*
“I myself did have a notion about the eighth art, about the transcendence of art: I believed that the only real art was life itself.”
*
December 9, 2012
definitely about drinking. seriously, Mension is quite the alcoholic. guy debord shows up sometimes. its seven forty, i think I'm gonna have another beer tonight...
March 24, 2013
The dark side of the Letterist International. Wild and enlightening set of interviews and documents.
Thank you City Lights Books (@CityLightsBooks)
Thank you City Lights Books (@CityLightsBooks)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews