Antonin Artaud

Poet, actor, playwright, surrealist, drug addict, asylum inmate—Antonin Artaud (1896-1949) is one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic personalities and idiosyncratic thinkers. In this biography, David A. Shafer takes readers on a voyage through Artaud’s life, which he spent amid the company of France’s most influential cultural figures, even as he stood apart from them.

Shafer casts Artaud as a person with tenacious values. Even though Artaud was born in the material comfort of a bou...