- Julien Torma
Julien Torma (
April 6 ,1902 –February 17 ,1933 ) was a Frenchwriter ,playwright andpoet who was part of theDada ist movement. He was born inCambrai ,France , and died inTyrol .A friend of
Max Jacob andRobert Desnos , he was near the surrealist group without adhering to surrealism. He felt himself nearer toAlfred Jarry 's'pataphysics thanAndre Breton 's surrealism. Most of his writings were posthumously revealed by the French College of 'Pataphysique.Julien Torma disappeared in the mounts of
Tyrol at the age of 30. He possibly committed suicide.Due to his elusive behaviour and the impossibility to check his life facts [ family members die or leave him early in life, every writer he is supposed to have known died long before the publication of his books, no professional career, no fixed address, his body was never recovered] , it has been suggested many times that Julien Torma's existence may be entirely fictional. [ Michel Corvin "Essai d'interprétation d'une mystification Littéraire"] . His purported birthday,
April 6 , is marked as “the birthday of pataphysics” in the “pataphysics calendar”. Nevertheless, some [ Jean-François Jeandillou, "Supercheries littéraires", USHER, 1991] believe that a real writer eager to create confusion authored the first four publications and "Porte battantes". Anyway, would the person be real, Torma has to be a pen name: according to the French institute for statisticsINSEE , since 1891, only three Torma births have been recorded in France, all of them between 1941 and 1965 in the South-West.Publications
* "The Obscure Lamp." 1919.
* "The Big Troche." 1925.
* "Cuts." 1926.
* "Euphorisms." 1926.Posthumous publications
* "Lebordelamer." 1955.
* "Le Bétrou." 1955.
* "Porte Battante." 1963.
* "Grabuge." 1998.
* "Definitively incomplete writings." 2003.References
References
* "4 Dada Suicides: Selected Texts of Arthur Cravan, Jacques Rigaut, Julien Torma & Jacques Vache" (Anti-Classics of Dada) by
Jacques Rigaut , Julien Torma,Jacques Vache , andArthur Cravan . Roger Conover (Editor), Terry J. Hale (Editor), Paul Lenti (Editor), Iain White (Editor). (1995)Atlas Press ISBN 0-947757-74-0
* Was Julien Torma a hoax ? discussed in French on www.toutelapoesie.com/226.html
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