Black Coat Press has just published translations of two of Louise Michel’s utopian novels, The Human Microbes (1887) and The New World (1888). They were part of a projected 6-volume science-fiction series. Brian Stableford, who also translated a collection of Han Ryner’s stories, The Superhumans, and who is well-known as a prolific author and translator, did the translations. I’ve read parts of The Human Microbes in French, and it’s a wild ride. I’m putting my order in for these two volumes right away.
Working Translations
Louise Michel, “The Claque-Dents,” Ch. II
[Chapter I] [one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] II At the home of young Stéphane’s mistress there occurred a scene at once burlesque and sinister. Thirty thousand francs, won at the tables when chance was on his side, had allowed him to buy the bed and the jewels; he tried Lucrèce’s coral necklace on Marguerite. On her marble neck, its red line made the mark of the scaffold. Marguerite was vaguely aware of this thought of Stéphane’s. He saw her put her hand to her neck, as if to a wound. An intuition of the crime passed through him, while a […]
Anarchist Beginnings
Louise Michel, “Why we are Anarchists” (1891)
We are Anarchists because it is absolutely impossible to obtain justice for all in any other way than by destroying institutions founded on force and privilege. We cannot believe that improvement is possible, if we still keep up the same institutions, now more rotten than in the past, or if we merely replace those whose iniquities are known by new men. These latter become in their turn what the others were, or else become barren. After the gradual changes of past centuries the hour has come when evolution cannot be separated from revolution, as in all birth they must be […]
Contr'un
Letter of Henri Rochefort on Louise Michel
Letter of Henri Rochefort on Louise Michel (1) Dieppe, July 6, 1883. My Dear Citizen Argyriadès, I have only known our friend aboard the warship that transported us to New Caledonia. But I know that during the siege she had heroically fait le coup de l’eu against the Prussians, under whose guns she went to gather the wounded. It is likely that none of those who condemned her could have accomplished such exploits. I have recounted before the court of assizes her devotion for her fellow deportees, to whom she gave even her coat and her socks, keeping for herself […]