French/English

anarchist individualism

E. Armand, “A Little Manual for the Anarchist Individualist” (1911/1934)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Petit Manuel anarchiste individualiste I Etre anarchiste c’est nier l’autorité et rejeter son corollaire économique : l’exploitation. Et cela dans tous les domaines où s’exerce l’activité humaine. L’anarchiste veut vivre sans dieux ni maîtres ; sans patrons ni directeurs ; alégal, sans lois comme sans préjugés ; amoral, sans obligations comme sans morale collective. Il veut vivre librement, vivre sa conception personnelle de la vie. En son for intérieur, il est toujours un asocial, un réfractaire, un en dehors, un en-marge, un à-côté, un inadapté. Et pour obligé qu’il soit de vivre dans une société dont la constitution répugne à […]
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier, “Neology”

July 13, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
NEOLOGY. Has not a new Science the ability to use some new words and to create for itself, if necessary, a complete nomenclature? Would we refuse to the sciences the prerogative granted to the subordinate functions, which have their collection of technical terms chosen without method? I will use that license with moderation, and when I am forced to resort to neology, it will be with a care to avoid NEOLOGISMS and arbitrariness, and support the denominations already accepted in the fixed sciences. The same regularity will reign in the signs, the special numbers, the gamut  sand series, and the whole […]
Working Translations

Louise Michel, “A Final Thought” (1887)

July 5, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[The New Era — VIII] [one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] A Final Thought Diving into the past, we see it join with the future like the two extremities of a circular arc, and that circle, like a sound wave, awakens others, infinitely. Eaten away by the world (from ancient India to ourselves), will the lost sciences germinate or are they dead in the flower? Must we wait for new emanations for new beginnings? Will there be enough to return to the soil to provide the seeds of renewal and conditions proper to existence? How many civilizations have fallen, how many scientific […]
fiction

Louise Michel, “Old Chéchette” (1884)

July 5, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Old Chéchette There are some beings so disgraced by nature, so strange to look at or hear, that their aspect alone is a subject for sad studies for some, of wild mockeries for others. Some have not always been this way: some of them have had some accident, whether moral or physical, while others, by letting themselves idly go from fatigue or laziness, are brought low to some degree and, on that slope, there is no reason for them to stop. Others still (and this is dreadful for humanity) become thus under the pressure of […]
Saint Ravachol

A Handwritten Manuscript by Ravachol (1892)

July 5, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
A HANDWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT BY RAVACHOL Since his condemnation to death, Ravachol has written a great deal in prison. Here is a long handwritten text that we have been able to obtain, not without great difficulties. We have confided the reproduction of this interesting document to the house of Sédard in Lyon. It is written on two pages, and in it Ravachol explains his theories. Society can only be improved by a complete transformation of its organization. The most advanced political reforms, such as a tax on revenue and pensions for old age, all sound good to the ears of a […]
poetry

Louise Michel, “Memories of Caledonia” (1887)

July 4, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[A Final Thought] [one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] MEMORIES OF CALEDONIA (SONG OF THE CAPTIVES) Here the winter has no hold, Here the woods are always green; From the Ocean, the fresh breeze Blows over the dreary deserts, And so profound is the silence That the insect which sways Alone troubles the calm of the air. Evening, on these remotes shores, Sometimes rises a sweet song: It is some poor shellfish Which murmurs while it opens. In the forest, the oleanders, The newly blooming flowers Quiver with love in the wind. See, from the starry waves, Breaks a wandering whiteness! […]
fiction

Louise Michel, “The Clavier of My Over-Dream” (1867)

July 4, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] The Clavier of My Over-Dream A few days ago, I slept in a lovely dream. I was free, in a boundless space, where I ascended as easily as one follows the paths of our valleys. I found myself in a monument, so vast that its edges seemed like a distant horizon. Silence filled the vaults, but I sensed their incredible resonance. I sat down at an instrument whose keyboard included so many rising and so many descending notes, that it must include many sounds indistinguishable to the human ear. When I put my hands on […]
Working Translations

Fernando Tarrida del Mármol, “Questions of Tactics” (1890)

August 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
QUESTIONS OF TACTICS ————– We have received the following letter from one of our comrades at El Productor of Barcelona. It seems good to reproduce it, for, aside from a few errors of judgment, it contains advice worth considering, and, in the response that we expect to make to our friends in Spain, if we manage to find and demonstrate the causes of the disorganization of the anarchists, the cause of the inconsistency of the groups and their inactivity, we could find there the remedy and some indications of the tactics to follow: Barcelona, August 7, 1890. Comrades of La […]
poetry

Albert Millaud, “Ravachol” (March 30, 1892)

May 18, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] RAVACHOL Ravachol? Who knows Ravachol? Who knows how He is made? Is he a being? Is he a myth? Is he a man? Is he blond as honey, brown as a Spaniard? Is he small? average? stocky? short? tall? superb? Fat? lean? a bit of both? long-haired? bald? beardless? Alas! who will tell me how Ravachol is made? Ravachol? Where does he lie? Is he in France? in Asia? In Senegambia? or in Polynesia? Of what gulf, isle or cape does he tramp the soil? In what wood? on what mount ? in what virgin forest? […]