Penot-Lacassagne's 'Vies et morts d'Antonin Artaud' Reimagines Biography

Olivier Penot-Lacassagne's 'Vies et morts d'Antonin Artaud' (Éditions Christian Pirot) confronts the challenge of writing about Artaud after major studies by Derrida, Deleuze, Adamov, Thévenin, and Sollers. The book's plural title signals its approach to Artaud's multiple lives and deaths. The first chapter, 'État civil,' plunges into Artaud's lifelong struggle to reclaim himself against filiation, to belong to himself through writing, drawing, and performance. Artaud perceived slavery as a pervasive habit, inhabiting the spirit of finitude defended by those who accept imposed limits. The biography traces Artaud's journey through Marseille, Paris, Mexico, Ireland, and asylum confinement. It documents the violence of fifty-eight electroshocks between 1943 and 1945, which induced a coma, and his addiction to heroin, cocaine, and laudanum to manage pain. Penot-Lacassagne emphasizes Artaud's radical self-invention: 'I, Artaud, am my son, my father, my mother and myself.' Through writing and bodily knowledge, Artaud rebirthed himself, becoming a speaking being outside the community. Pascal Boulanger reviewed the work.