The Consulate at Joyland is delighted to welcome a distinguished French visitor. Three haunting, mournful, and disturbing short-shorts from Clandestine Messengers can be read for the next two weeks in that lovely litmag’s international section.
Marcel Béalu (1908-1993) was best known for the delicacy with which he explored dreams and the unreal in poetry, prose, and painting. A retiring figure, he ran the Parisian bookstore at 62, rue de Vaugirard named Le Pont Traversé after a novel by his friend, critic and editor Jean Paulhan. There he held readings for a small circle of surrealist and fantastical writers; it is said Lacan, among his first customers, purchased Shakespeare’s complete works and forgot to pay for them. Béalu also founded the revue of fantastic writing Réalités secrètes (1955-1971). His 1945 novel L’Expérience de la nuit was translated by Christine Donougher as The Experience of Night (Dedalus, 1997).
Leave a Reply