FACT: Nouvelles Impressions d’Afrique is the last work that the
French poet, playwright, and novelist Raymond Roussel published
during his lifetime. He began drafting it in 1915, but the poem
was not to appear until the autumn of 1932, less than a year
before its author was found dead in his room at the Grande
Albergo e delle Palme in Palermo, Sicily at the age of 56. New
Impressions of Africa Translated and introduced by Mark Ford
Raymond Roussel (1877-1933) was one of the French belle époque’s
most compelling literary figures. During his lifetime, Roussel’s
work was vociferously championed by the surrealists, but never
achieved the widespread acclaim for which he yearned. New
Impressions of Africa is undoubtedly Roussel’s most
extraordinary work. Since its publication in 1932, this weird
and wonderful poem has slowly gained cult status, and its
admirers have included Salvador Dalì–who dubbed it the most
“ungraspably poetic” work of the era–André Breton, Jean Cocteau,
Marcel Duchamp, Michel Foucault, Kenneth