Artaud’s Revolutionary Messages

Published here in its entirety for the first time in English, Messages Revolutionnaires collects Antonin Artaud’s political and philosophical writings during his travels to Mexico in 1936.

Written around the same time as his seminal work The Theatre and its Double, it captures a crucial point in Artaud’s life shortly before he was admitted to a mental asylum in which he was to spend a significant part of his later life.

Revolutionary Messages contains papers that Artaud gave at the University of Mexico, articles from the daily Mexican newspaper El Nacional Revolucionario and a study of three seminal artists of the time influenced by Mexico - Franz Hals, Ortiz Monasterio and Maria Izquierdo.

Not only will you gain crucial insight into Artaud’s time in Mexico and his vision of a ‘total revolution’ in opposition to Marxist and Surrealist conceptions of revolution at the time, but you will deepen your understanding of his theatrical project, which ultimately shaped modern theatre.

The publication includes an extensive introduction by the translator and a preface by an Artaud scholar, Joel White.