Rimbaud, el indeseable

Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) lives on in the collective imagination as the adolescent genius who freed the poetic sign from conventionalism and censorship, who broadened the avenues of creation and transformed the way of conceiving poetry. 130 years after his death, his deliberate silence is still a scandal, because if the poetic emotion is sacred, how is it possible that Rimbaud, the creator par excellence, the most influential poet of modernity, chose to abandon writing and preferred the deliberate silence and the life of a merchant? To answer this question, Xavier Coste recounts the two lives of Rimbaud without any romantic slip: that of the young adolescent poet who arrives in Paris in need of recognition, knowing that he brings with him an unusual message, who lives a sulphurous and destructive relationship with Paul Verlaine, and who discovers that true life is not in writing; and that of the twentysomething who decides to join the army, who deserts and begins a wandering life to end up working as a gray arms and slave trader in Africa. Through harrowing illustrations that convey the atmosphere of turn-of-the-century bohemia, "Rimbaud, the Undesirable" offers a frank portrait of Arthur Rimbaud: manipulative, shameless, sometimes downright rude, always brilliant and possessed of overwhelming vitality, a symbol of youthful rebellion in all its splendor.