The Violet Blood of the Amethyst

Poetry. Fiction. Literary Nonfiction. Bilingual Edition. Translated from the French by John Taylor. THE VIOLET BLOOD OF THE AMETHYST (Le Sang violet de l'améthyste), published posthumously in 1998, exemplifies the rich and extremely diverse work of Louis Calaferte, one of the most original and controversial writers of 20th-century France. Here, in seemingly random order, are poems, memories, philosophical speculations, quotations, addresses to the reader, erotic descriptions,...
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Poetry. Fiction. Literary Nonfiction. Bilingual Edition. Translated from the French by John Taylor. THE VIOLET BLOOD OF THE AMETHYST (Le Sang violet de l'améthyste), published posthumously in 1998, exemplifies the rich and extremely diverse work of Louis Calaferte, one of the most original and controversial writers of 20th-century France. Here, in seemingly random order, are poems, memories, philosophical speculations, quotations, addresses to the reader, erotic descriptions, alchemical concepts, childhood scenes and, most surprisingly, monologues of Polyphemus, the cyclops of Homeric legend. The settings shift between London and Venice, the time—from the Middle Ages to the present. In the introduction to his translation, John Taylor compares this stream to the unstoppable thoughts of insomnia, or to the flow of consciousness that runs in our heads every day.