Bernat Manciet’s “Ode to James Dean”

Just out from Mindmade Books. Writes Guy Bennet, the publisher:

One of the major Occitan writers of the latter half of the 20th century, Bernat Manciet (1923–2005) was the author of numerous works of poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction, and editor (for some thirty years) of the revue Òc. This 1958 poem, a hallucinatory verbal meditation on the death of the American actor, captures the “brutal, sharp, abrasive, wily, loutish, irascible, burning, rash, fighting, aggressive” qualities that Manciet prized in Occitan. It appears here in a bilingual edition with a translation by Pierre Joris and Nicole Peyrafitte.

Ode to James Dean is available individually, or as part of Mindmade Books’ 2014 series, which also includes work by Rocío Carlos, Portia Elan, and Ramon Gomez de la Serna (trans. Guy Bennett). The cost is $7 for the single title, $25 for all four publications. To place an order, send an email to guy.bennett@sbcglobal.net with the title(s) you are interested, your address, and the form of payment you would prefer (check, International Money Order, or PayPal) and I will reply with details.

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