Are You All Crazy?

René Crevel

translated by Sue Boswell

René Crevel (1900-1935), a bisexual communist who suffered from tuberculosis, was one of the most important surrealist authors, a true genius, and possibly the best writer of surrealist fiction, and no other of his works of fiction is more surreal than Are You All Crazy?, originally published in 1929 and here presented for the first time in English in a superb translation by Sue Boswell.

In this feverish, full-speed-ahead novel of out-and-out madness, we meet a redhead who gives birth to a blue child, hear the naughty song of the pigtail-pullers, visit the Sexual Institute of Dr Optimus Cerf-Mayer, attend an eonism séance, and witness a fifty-kilo rat disembowelling a fakir.

Are You All Crazy? is a subversive masterpiece and a work of deep psychological interest, which, although puzzling in the utmost in its excesses of satirical bravado, certainly must be acknowledged to be one of the great European novels.

About the Author
René Crevel (1900-1935) was born in Paris to a family of Parisian bourgeoisie. He joined the Dada movement in 1923, performing in Tristan Tzara’s play Le Coeur à Barbe, before joining the Surrealists. In 1924, the same year that he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, he published his first novel Détours, which was followed by a series of other novels, including Mon Corps et moi (1925), La Mort difficile (1926), and Êtes-vous fous? (1929). He committed suicide in June, 1935.

About the Translator
Sue Boswell studied French Language and Literature at UCL and for a time taught French at Goldsmiths University of London. She then moved into university administration, specialising in university external relations and communications. Later she became a translator for the Wiener Holocaust Library. Sue Boswell’s translations published by Snuggly Books include The Assassins and other Stories, by Marcel Schwob (2020), The Last Train, by Arnaud Rykner (2020), The Confession of a False Soul, by Ilarie Voronca (2021), I Will not Come, by Arnaud Rykner (2022), The Key to Reality, by Ilarie Voronca (2022), The Treasure of the Arcueil Cavern, by Petrus Borel (2022).

Paperback, 198 pages. Release date: April 11, 2023
ISBN-13: 978-1-64525-121-7
Price: US$19.00

Hardcover, 200 pages. Limited edition of 100 copies
Release date: April 11, 2023
Price: US$32.00