The Man of Jasmine and Other Texts - Unica Zürn

The Man of Jasmine & Other Texts by Unica Zürn / ISBN 9781900565820 / hardcover from Atlas Press Intense. A 50 Watts favorite. *** In the 25 years since Atlas Press first published this account by Unica Zürn (1916–70) of her long history of mental crises, she has come to be recognized as a great artist at least the equal of her partner, the Surrealist Hans Bellmer. Yet her work is barely comprehensible without the texts printed here―now revised by translator Malcolm Green―in which she demonstrates how Surrealist conceptions of the psyche allowed her to welcome the most alarming experiences as offering access to an inner existence that was the vital source for her artistic output. Green's introduction to this volume was the first study to consider her life and work from this perspective. Zürn’s first mental collapse was initiated when she encountered her fantasy figure, “the Man of Jasmine,” in the person of the writer and artist Henri Michaux. This meeting plunged her into a halluc