author
comte de Lautréamont
1846–1870
A poet of mystery and intensity, he left behind only a handful of works, yet they changed the course of modern literature. His dark, startling imagination would later inspire Surrealists and generations of avant-garde writers and artists.
2 Audiobooks
Les Chants de Maldoror
by comte de Lautréamont
Poésies
by comte de Lautréamont
About the author
Born Isidore Lucien Ducasse in Montevideo, Uruguay, on April 4, 1846, he wrote in French and published under the name Comte de Lautréamont. He spent much of his life in France and died in Paris on November 24, 1870, at just twenty-four years old.
His reputation rests mainly on two works: Les Chants de Maldoror and Poésies. Maldoror is famous for its fierce, dreamlike, unsettling style, while Poésies shows a sharper, more compressed side of his writing.
During his short lifetime he remained an obscure and enigmatic figure, but his work was rediscovered later and became hugely influential. Readers and writers have returned to him for the same reason ever since: his pages still feel wild, strange, and shockingly new.