Jacques Vache and the Roots of Surrealism: Including Vache’s War Letters & Other Writings

Literary Nonfiction. Fiction. Biography. Conscripted into the French Army in World War One, Jacques Vache soon became not only the unsurpassed champion of Desertion from Within, but also the master of Disservice with Diligence. His post-humous slim book, War Letters (1919)–included in the present volume–is a classic of surrealist anti-militarism and subversion. Renowned as the Inventor of Umour (Humour without the H), Vache was–along with Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautreamont–the major inspirer of Andre Breton and the surrealist revolution. The first of its kind in English, this book chronicles Vache’s boundless originality, creative nonconformity, revolutionary morality (or umoral-ity), and his all-out turn-the-world-upside-down hilarity. Welcomed by Andre Breton himself into the Paris Surrealist Group in 1966, Franklin Rosemont took part in the Paris group’s activities for several months and went on to co-organize the Chicago Surrealist Group later that year. Rosemont (1943-2009) died earlier this year.