Louis Armand (writer)
Louis Armand, PhD (born 1972, Sydney) is a writer, poet, visual artist and a critical theorist. He has lived in Prague since 1994. His academic affiliations include the University of New England and Charles University, where he is Director of the Centre for Critical & Cultural Theory, DALC. In 2004, Armand founded the Prague International Poetry Festival.[1] in 2009 he co-organised (with David Vichnar) a Micro-Festival Poetry Series in Prague and Brno.[2] He is a member of the editorial board of Rhizomes: Studies in Cultural Knowledge and founding editor (1994) of the online journal HJS (Hypermedia Joyce Studies). He is the founding editor of VLAK Magazine.
Armand’s work has been described as “Avant-garde in the most literal sense, […] best appreciated by readers prepared to abandon the baggage of identity-driven poetry and systematically naturalist prose."[3] In 1997 he received the Max Harris prize for poetry at the Penola Festival (Adelaide) and in 2000 he was awarded the Nassau Review Prize (New York). His screenplay Clair Obscur won honourable mention at the 2009 Trieste Film Festival.
Works
Armand’s poems have appeared in Meanjin, Agenda, The Age, Stand, Poetry Review, Verse and Sulfur, as well as The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry (ed. John Kinsella 2008), Calyx: 30 Contemporary Australian Poets (eds. Michael Brennan and Peter Minter, 2000), and The Best Australian Poems (ed. Peter Rose, 2008). He is author of five volumes of poetry and a number of chapbooks including: Land Partition (2001), Inexorable Weather (2001), Malice in Underland (2003) and Strange Attractors (2003). The Garden, a work of experimental fiction was published in 2001.
Armand’s novels include Clair Obscur (2011); Breakfast at Midnight (2012), critically acclaimed and described by critics as a “twisted, brilliantly savage acid noir”[4] and a “wonderfully executed nod to Kafka’s special brand of disorienting surrealism”;[5] Canicule (2013); Cairo (2014), which was shortlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize 2014, and, most recently, Abacus (2015).
In 2013, Breakfast at Midnight was translated into Czech by David Vichnar and published by Argo Press.
Armand’s critical and theoretical work has been published in journals such as Ctheory, Triquarterly and Culture Machine. His most recent books include Helixtrolysis: Cyberology & the Joycean “Tyrondynamon Machine” (2014), The Organ Grinder's Monkey (2013),Solicitations: Essays on Criticism & Culture (2008), Event States: Discourse, Time, Mediality (2007) and Contemporary Poetics (2007).
Publications
- Criticism
Hidden Agendas Unreported Poetics ed. Louis Armand. Prague: Charles Univ., 2010.
Hypermedia Joyce eds. David Vichnar & Louis Armand. Prague: Charles Univ., 2010.
The Return of Kral Majales Prague's International Literary Renaissance 1990–2010 An Anthology ed. Louis Armand. Prague: Charles Univ., 2010.
Techne: James Joyce, Hypertext & Technology. Prague: Karolinum Press/Charles University Press, 2003.
Incendiary Devices: Discourses of the Other. Prague: Karolinum Press/Charles University Press, 2005/6.
Literate Technologies: Language, Cognition, Technicity. Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006.
Event States: Discourse, Time, Mediality. Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2007.
Solicitations: Essays on Criticism & Culture. (First edition 2005) Expanded and revised edition, Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2008.
Night Joyce of a Thousand Tiers. Petr Škrabánek: Studies in Finnegans Wake. Eds. Louis Armand & Ondrej Pilny. Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2002.
Avant-Post. Ed. Louis Armand. Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006.
JoyceMedia: James Joyce, Genetics and Hypermedia. Ed. Louis Armand. Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2004.
Mind Factory. Ed. Louis Armand. Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2005.
Giacomo Joyce: Envoys of the Other. Eds. Louis Armand & Clare Wallace. Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006. (2nd edition)
Technicity. Eds. Louis Armand and Arthur Bradley. Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006.
Contemporary Poetics. Ed. Louis Armand. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2007.
Language Systems: After Prague Structuralism. Ed. Louis Armand with Pavel Černovsky. Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2007.
- Poetry
Seances. Prague: Twisted Spoon Press, 1998.
The Viconian Paramour. New York: x-poezie, 1998.
Erosions. Sydney: Vagabond Press, 1999. (chapbook)
Anatomy Lessons. New York: x-poezie, 1999. (chapbook)
Land Partition. Melbourne: Textbase Publications, 2001.
Base Materialism. New York: x-poezie, 2001. (chapbook)
Inexorable Weather. Todmorden, Lancs. (UK): Arc Publications, 2001.
Malice in Underland. Melbourne: Textbase, 2003.
Strange Attractors. Cambridge: Salt Publications, 2003.
Picture Primitive. NY: Antigen, 2006.
Letters from Ausland Sydney: Vagabond, 2011.
- Fiction
The Garden (Cambridge: Salt, 2001) The Garden
Menudo (New York: Antigen, 2006) Menudo
Clair Obscur (London: Equus, 2011)
Breakfast at Midnight (London: Equus, 2012)
Canicule (London: Equus, 2013)
Snídaně o půlnoci (trans. David Vichnar; Prague: Argo, 2013)
Cairo (London: Equus, 2014)
Abacus (Sydney: Vagabond Press, 2015)
The Combinations (London: Equus, 2016)
- Exhibitions
Galerie Artnatur (1999) Solo
Galerie Gambit (2002) Solo
Southern: 10 Contemporary Australian Artists, Home Gallery (2004) co-curator
Art Prague (2006)
Hunger Gallery (2010) Solo
References
- ↑ Prague International Poetry Festival 2004
- ↑ Micro-Festival Poetry Series 2009
- ↑ Bridie McCarthy, "Cosmopoetics: ‘Dimensions Unknown’” review of Strange Attractors in Jacket 31(2006)
- ↑ http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2013/12/02/cairo-novel-excerpt-louis-armand/
- ↑ http://necessaryfiction.com/reviews/BreakfastatMidnightbyLouisArmand
External links
- Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory
- Arc publications
- Salt publishing
- Litteraria Pragensia Books
- Micro-Poetry Festival 2009
- Textbase Publications
- A. K. Drees, rev of Louis Armand, Mind Factory. rhizomes.20 (summer 2010)http://www.rhizomes.net/issue20/reviews/drees.html
- Vidhu Aggarwal, rev. of Contemporary Poetics. Ed. Louis Armand. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 2007: xxx + 396. Hyperhiz: new media cultures 5 (2008): http://www.rhizomes.net
- Andrei Codrescu, review of Land Partition by Louis Armand, Exquisite Corpse number 10 (2002): http://corpse.org/issue_10/critiques/codrescu.html
- Jeroen Nieuwland rev. of Solicitations: Essays on Criticism and Culture, Jacket 37 (2009) http://jacketmagazine.com/37/r-armand-rb-nieuwland.shtml