Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa 1880-91

Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa 1880-91

<div>At the age of twenty-five, Arthur Rimbaud—the infamous author of <I>A Season in Hell,</I> the pioneer of modernism, the lover and destroyer of Verlaine, the "hoodlum poet" celebrated a century later by Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison—turned his back on poetry, France, and fame, for a life of wandering in East Africa.<br><BR>In this compelling biography, Charles Nicholl pieces together the shadowy story of Rimbaud's life as a trader, explorer, and gunrunner in Africa. Following his fascinating journey, Nicholl shows how Rimbaud lived out that mysterious pronouncement of his teenage years: "Je est un autre"—I is somebody else.<BR><BR>"Rimbaud's fear of stasis never left him. 'I should like to wander over the face of the whole world,' he told his sister, Isobelle, 'then perhaps I'd find a place that would please me a little.' The tragedy of Rimbaud's later life, superbly chronicled by Nicholl, is that he never really did."—<I>London Guardian</I><BR><BR>"Nicholl has excavated a mosaic of semi-legendary anecdotes to show that they were an essential part of the poet's journey to become 'somebody else.' Not quite biography, not quite travel book, in the end <I>Somebody Else</I> transcends both genres."—Sara Wheeler, <I>Daily Telegraph</I><BR><BR>"At the end of <I>Somebody Else</I> Rimbaud is more interesting and more various than before: he is not less mysterious, but he is more real."—Susannah Clapp, <I>Observer Review</I></div>