New Impressions of Africa

Mark Ford teaches in the English Department at University College London. He is the author of Raymond Roussel and the Republic of Dreams. He has also published two volumes of essays, A Driftwood Altar and Mr and Mrs Stevens and Other Essays. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books.

• Introduction 1 Canto I: Damiette: La maison ou Saint Louis fut prisonnier / Damietta: The house where Saint Louis was held prisoner 18 Canto II: Le Champ de bataille des Pyramides / The Battlefield of the Pyramids 62 Canto III: La Colonne qui, lechee jusqu'a ce que la langue saigne, guerit la jaunisse / The column that, when licked until the tongue bleeds, cures jaundice 178 Canto IV: Les Jardins de Rosette vus d'une dahabieh / The Gardens of Rosetta seen from a dahabieh 210

Runner-Up for the 2012 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, PEN American Center "Ford ... deserves a medal and a Legion d'honneur... Ford, himself a poet, combines his translation, introduction and notes with the original French and all the original illustrations; he and his publisher have given English-speaking readers privileged access to New Impressions of Africa, the book which Salvador Dali once described as 'ungraspably poetic'"--Peter Read, Times Literary Supplement "Mark Ford's facing-pages edition is easily the most comprehensive and reader-friendly to date. The author of the definitive biography of Roussel in English, Ford brings lucidity to his translation of what is by far Roussel's most ambitious work and probably his masterpiece."--Paul Grimstad, London Review of Books "In his excellent introduction, Ford quotes Leiris's description of New Impressions of Africa as, among other things, a massive brain teaser, and many of its riddles are as humorous as they are tricky... Intelligent, irascibly intelligible, and definitive."--Eric Banks, BookForum "In this poem, every road diverges into a woods. It's a chance to take them all."--Tyler Meier, Kenyon Review Newsletter "Ford has not just translated but has also deciphered the New Impressions of Africa. In his own words, the poem is nothing less than a 'brain-teaser'. His translation is, as he concedes, less concise than the original, but not by much, and perhaps inevitably so. Roussel is so precise and sharp that his words seem almost psychically ergonomic. What Ford does brightly is recreate Roussel's cleverness and wit. In short, Ford has successfully translated what is nothing less than a sort of charming anomaly of modern literature. Rather than distracting from his work, the explanatory notes encourage the reader to appreciate Roussel. This generous clothbound, bilingual edition, which includes the original illustrations that Roussel commissioned, would even have pleased the author himself."--William Heyward, Australian Book Review