Antonin ARTAUD is asking for help for his literature.

Antonin ARTAUD (1896-1948)

Autograph letter signed to Marius-François-Pierre Roustan, Minister of Public Education and Fine Arts

Two folio pages. Paris, October 16, 1931.

Apostille from Jean Paulhan and annotation in pencil from the recipient: “ 33 years not married ”.

Magnificent letter in which Antonin Artaud supports his request for subsidies on the list of his most remarkable works and achievements.

________________________________________________________________________________________

“Mr. Minister, I have the honor to request from your high kindness the allocation of assistance taken from the Letters fund.  I am the author, among other books, of a sort of adaptation of Lewis's “Monk”, published last March by Denoël and Steele, as well as several booklets published by Gallimard in the collection “Une oeuvre, un portrait ”, and among which “the umbilicus of limbo”, “the nerve weigher”, “Jacques Rivière correspondence”.

I have been collaborating with the Nouvelle Revue Française since 1924. In 1927, I founded the Alfred Jarry theater which gave, among other shows, “The Mysteries of Love” and “Children in Power” by R Vitrac. and above all a representation of Strindberg's “Song”, of which it was the first presentation in France. I am currently completing a Life of Abelard which occupies me exclusively and requires me to carry out very diligent research in several libraries and it is to carry out this work successfully and in complete freedom that I request this assistance. Please accept, Mr. Minister, the expression of my distinguished tributes. Antonin Artaud. »

Jean Paulhan supports Artaud's request at the head of the letter and indicates the poet's address:

“Mr. Antonin Artaud is a remarkable writer and also perfectly honest and upright. He would be in dire need of help. I allow myself to respectfully recommend it to the benevolence of the Minister”

________________________________________________________________________________________

It was not until the end of January 1937 that Artaud, still supported by Pauhan, obtained “emergency relief” of 600 francs from the Letters fund, after having suffered several refusals.

All the works cited here by their author are essential: first milestones in a nascent career, they form the spectrum of Artaud's artistic personality. Between writing and the stage, with prose and epistolary form, mysticism and surrealist temptation, this brief evocation of Artaud's works by himself reveals the full importance of his work, past and future.

________________________________________________________________________________________