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Interview by Jose-Maria Valverde

Manuscript

Author

Authors José-Maria Valverde, André Breton
People cited Louis Aragon, Charles-Quint, Dante, John W. Dunne, Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, Charles Fourier, Antonio Gaudi, Francesco Goya, René Guénon, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Héraclite, Isidore Ducasse, dit comte de Lautréamont, Stéphane Lupasco, Napoléon 1er, Pablo Neruda, Antonio Porchia, Arthur Rimbaud, Emmanuel Swedenborg, Paolo Uccello, José-Maria Valverde, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Paul Éluard, Joan Miró, Octavio Paz, Pablo Picasso, Benjamin Péret

Description

An interview with José Valverde in September 1950 for Correo literario (Madrid).

Given to José Valverde for the Spanish journal Correo literario, this interview was published in September 1950. At a time when André Breton’s interventions tended to focus on international and political issues, the Madrid-based critic invites him to clarify his position on aspects that are much closer to surrealism in the strict sense, notably to consider ‘neo-surrealism’ (a term the poet immediately refuses) and the various ‘schools’ emerging at this moment – here once again Breton proves highly reticent towards this idea of a school or group. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Signed handwritten manuscript and typescript, Paris, 18 September 1950.
Manuscript by André Breton, made up of the copy of the seven questions from José Valverde and the answers handwritten in green ink, titled by the Madrid journal Correo literario as ‘Interview with José Ma. Valverde’, dated and signed by André Breton.
‘What is your attitude towards neo-surrealism? — There is no ‘neo-surrealism’. Anything presenting itself as such or that today rigs itself out with the label of ‘revolutionary surrealism’ is a front for speculative falsification and should be denounced as an imposture.’

The manuscript includes the questions, each followed by Breton’s replies. Correo literario de Madrid. La Pléiade, volume III, Entretiens 1913-1952, pp. 624-28. [Auction catalogue, 2003]

Translated by Krzysztof Fijalkowski

Bibliography

André Breton (Édition de Marguerite Bonnet avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier, Marie-Claire Dumas, Étienne-Alain Hubert et José Pierre), « Interview de José M. Valverde », Entretiens 1913-1952, Œuvres complètes, tome III, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1999, p. 624-628, notice p. 1329-1330.