Working Translations

fiction

The Exploits of Ravachol (in progress)

November 29, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE EXPLOITS OF RAVACHOL  The Man with the Dynamite PART ONE THE CRIME OF CHAMBLES I THE INN OF THE GROTTO In these Exploits of Ravachol, the Man with the Dynamite, we will not write a novel, but a history. Why would we take the trouble to invent, when it is enough for us, in order to make the most riveting, original and dramatic narrative that could be imagined, to let speak only the facts, so strange and so striking, the completely unknown facts that we are going to make known,—and to simply recount the life of the man who, […]
anarchist individualism

E. Armand, “Little Manual of the Individualist Anarchist” (1911)

October 23, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] My translation of E. Armand’s “Mini-Manual” was a fairly early effort, and I’ve been meaning to get a revised translation posted for some time now. I originally tackled the sections that had not been published by Larry Gambone much more out of curiosity than deep interest. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve done a number of translations of Armand’s work without quite convincing myself of his importance. But, having finally dipped into his Individualist Anarchist Initiation, and finding it extremely interesting, I decided it was time to take a few hours to work over the “Mini-Manual.” There are a couple of […]
anarchist individualism

E. Armand on Sensual Pleasure

September 19, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
VARIATIONS SUR LA VOLUPTÉ Je sais que la volupté est un sujet dont vous n’aimez pas qu’on parle ou qu’on écrive. En traiter vous choque. Ou provoque chez vous la plaisanterie de mauvais aloi. Vous avez des livres dans votre bibliothèque qui embrassent presque toutes les branches de l’activité humaine. Vous possédez des dictionnaires et des encyclopédies. Vous comptez peut-être cent volumes sur une spécialité de la production manuelle. Et je ne parle pas des bouquins politiques ou sociologiques. Mais il n’y a pas sur vos rayons un seul ouvrage consacré à la volupté. Il y a des journaux qui […]
anarchist individualism

E. Armand, “On Sexual Liberty” (1916) (FR/EN)

September 19, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
In the past, I’ve translated a number of short essays by E. Armand, and thoroughly enjoyed reading several more, without entirely convincing myself that Armand is an important anarchist figure. The brand of Nietzschean individualism featured in the “Mini-Manual of the Individualist Anarchist” is interesting and sometimes suggestive. His writings on naturism and “amorous camaraderie” really do illuminate aspects of European individualist anarchism that are largely unknown to American anarchists. When I ran across his “De la liberté sexuelle” (published in 1916 in the corrected 2nd edition I worked from), it struck me as a useful bit of anarchist theory, […]
fiction

Han Ryner, The Revolt of the Machines (1896)

June 3, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Revolt of the Machines Han Ryner (Published in The Social Art No. 3 September 1896) Signed Henri Ner, 1896 In that time, Durdonc, Grand Engineer of Europe, thought that he had found the principle which would soon remove any human labor. But his first experiment caused his death before the secret was known. Durdonc had said: — The primitive forms of progress involved the invention of tools that allowed the hand to no longer be scraped and scratched and lose its nails in the work that must be done. The second form of progress was the organization of machines […]
Working Translations

Octave Mirbeau, Preface to Moribund Society and Anarchy

May 25, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] Voltairine de Cleyre translated Jean Grave’s Moribund Society and Anarchy (1899; first published in French in 1893 as La Société mourante et l’Anarchie), though she admitted she was not in complete agreement with it. “As to the principal object of the work,” she said in her Preface, “that of furnishing an inclusive criticism of the institutions of our moribund society and the necessity of its speedy dissolution, I think any fair-minded reader will be convinced that it has been pretty thoroughly done. As to the “What next?” it is far less certain. With this, however, Jean Grave,—sturdy, patient, indomitable […]
manifestos

The Manifesto of the Sixteen (1916)

May 25, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
From various sides, voices are raised to demand immediate peace. There has been enough bloodshed, they say, enough destruction, and it is time to finish things, one way or another. More than anyone, and for a long time, we and our journals have been against every war of aggression between peoples, and against militarism, no matter what uniform, imperial or republican, it dons. So we would be delighted to see the conditions of peace discussed—if that was possible—by the European workers, gathered in an international congress. Especially since the German people let itself be deceived in August 1914, and if they really believed that they mobilized for the defense of their territory, they have since had time to realize that they were wrong to embark on a war of conquest.

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Black and Red Feminism

Jeanne Deroin to Proudhon, January 1849

May 16, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Jeanne Deroin. “Lettre a M. Proudhon.” L’Opinion des Femmes. No. 1, Year 1. January 28, 1849.] Letter to Proudhon. Monsieur, I know that, preoccupied most especially with questions of political economy, you have not accepted all the consequences of the principles on which our social future rests. You are one of the most formidable adversaries of the principle of equality—a principle which does not allow unjust exclusion and privileges of sex. I know that you do not wish to recognize the right of women to civil and political equality. This right, which contain in it the abolition of all social […]
Black and Red Feminism

Paule Mink, “Broken Arm” (1895)

April 29, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
Picked up in the street, one morning, between a pile of rubbish and some rubble from demolition, abandoned like a small cat someone wants to be rid of, he was carried to the alms-house, and then placed among some farmers who raised him, giving him bread, in exchange, when he got to be a little bigger, for a labor that was very hard for a child, but who never had for him either affection or caresses.

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Black and Red Feminism

Séverine, Liberty—Equality—Fraternity

April 28, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
from NOTES OF A TROUBLE-MAKER Séverine (Caroline Rémy de Guebhard) ____ LIBERTY — EQUALITY — FRATERNITY Liberty? That night, on the asphalt beach that dominates the view from my window, some human wreckage, a father, mother, and two babies, had washed up on a bench. From the heights where, much despite myself, I glide, one could distinguish nothing but a pile of gray flesh and soiled rags, from which emerged, here and there, an arm, a leg, with a movement slow and painful as a crushed crab’s leg They slept, clutching one another, huddled in one pile, from habit, as […]