A Season in Hell and The Illuminations

"To each being, several other lives seemed due." -Arthur Rimbaud Having closely studied and admired the visionary masterpieces of 19th-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud for years, Christopher Bakka has translated them for himself. Born from a desire to deeply engage with the original French texts and to apprehend, as clearly as is possible, the words that Rimbaud wrote, these translations of A Season in Hell and The Illuminations are free from the wildly creative liberties in diction and syntax that make most translations of Rimbaud unreliable. Pure translation, is, of course, impossible, especially where poetry is concerned; devoted readers of Rimbaud, therefore, are encouraged to engage with the music and ambiguity of the poet's original French, presented here en face.