Vinko Grubišić (b. 1943), the author of this monograph about Antonin Artaud, and the translator of Artaud’s work of theory, The Theatre and Its Double, also published in the Series Mansions, is a professor at the Chair for Croatian Language and Culture in Waterloo, Canada. This poet, theoretician, writer of prose, and literary critic has written several books about the Croatian language and literature and is a long-term associate of the Croatian Review. Although he left Croatia in 1965, he has remained in close contact with his original homeland and its cultural events.
Grubišić’s starting point in his re-interpretation of the life and work of Antonin Artaud is biographical. The author tries in the most critical way to present Artaud’s biography with all its ups and downs, his stay in a mental institution, and his exceptionally productive creative phases. In so doing, he aims to unify and compare the various earlier analyses and studies, so that the reader receives the most objective image possible of the life and work of Antonin Artaud. Overall, Vinko Grubišić’s book endeavours to enter into the hidden areas of Artaud’s life and theoretical thought, leaving many questions open. The author stays on the border of speculation about data which has been lost with time, and through combination of reliable and indisputable (physical) evidence and his own narrative, makes the monograph Artaud a very readable book which brings nearer to us the period in which Artaud lived and worked, casting light on the fragments of thought of this exceptional man of the theatre. The book has been published thanks to support from the Ministry of Culture and the author’s refusal to accept his fee.