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Nadja by André Breton (1928)

"I at least regarded her as the only person who would have been worthy of my love, which amounts to saying I still loved her."


Title : Nadja

Author: Andre Breton

Translation:

Date Published: 1928

Type: Surrealist / Romance


Who are you

And she, without a moment’s hesitation “I am the soul in limbo”










"Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all."


Description

The principal narrative is an account of the author's relationship with a girl in the city of Paris, the story of an obsessional presence haunting his life.


Nadja is not so much a person as the way she makes people behave. She has been described as a state of mind, a feeling about reality, a kind of vision, and the reader sometimes wonders whether she exists at all. yet it is Nadja who gives form and structure to the novel.



" I took a better look at her. What was so extraordinary about what was happening in those eyes? What was it they reflected – some obscure distress and at the same time some luminous pride? "

André Breton, Nadja





Review


NADJA is a Surrealist romance, and has come to be known as a book which defined that movement's attitude towards life. With its blend of intimate confession and sense of the marvellous, NADJA weaves a mysterious and compelling tapestry of daily life as seen through a magical perspective. Combining autobiographical fact with memory and imagination, Breton spins one of the most unusual love stories in modern literature.





These letters are of little interest to me. Some are tearful, some declamatory, some absurd….


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The Author

André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism.


His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism".















cartoon bio from kiki book




Culture References


  • Included in Patti Smith favorite books

  • Composer named


Research Continued




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