Revelation

by R J Dent

From the publisher (Incunabula Media):

‘REVELATION by R J Dent is a chilling short novel dealing with the death of affect and the emotional and moral vacuum growing in the heart of our western society – encapsulated in the form of a marriage spiralling into disaster and almost insanity. When I read this I thought “I’ve found the thinking man’s Ian McEwan”. It’s very very good and very very nasty.’

‘There’s neither blame nor guilt on anyone’s part for what happened. And even if I were to want to apportion blame, I can’t think who the right person to blame would be. But I don’t want to point any accusing fingers because at the time everyone had a very lovely time…’

Revelation is the story of a married woman who agrees to fulfil one of her husband’s sexual fantasies – only to discover that a beautiful gift can become a malevolent curse. After one act of decadent abandon, she is drawn into a maelstrom of emotional devastation that threatens to destroy everything she holds dear, leading her to make the ultimate sacrifice…

Book details:

Title: Revelation

Author: R J Dent

ISBN: 978-1-4466-0288-1

Language: English

Format: Paperback

Pages: 70

Cover Design: D M Mitchell

Publishing Date: January 18th 2024

Publisher: Incunabula Media

Dimensions: (6 in x 9 in / 152 mm x 229 mm)

Purchase link: Incunabula Media: Incunabula Fiction – Revelation

Purchase Link: Lulu.com: Lulu.com/Revelation/RJDent/paperback

Amanda Hodgson’s goodreads review of Revelation: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6191529175?book_show_action=false

Incunabula Media: https://incunabulamedia.com/fiction

R J Dent: http://www.rjdent.com/

R J Dent’s Photos on ViewBug

This photo, along with hundreds of others R J Dent has taken over the years, can be seen on his ViewBug portfolio, available here: https://www.viewbug.com/member/R-J-Dent

As a writer/translator, R J Dent has written, translated or contributed to 23 books. Details of those books can be found here: http://www.rjdent.com/ and here: https://rjdentnewsandevents.wordpress.com/

Ritual of Filth: Georges Bataille’s The Dead Man (Translated into English by R J Dent) – a review by Tom Bland

RITUAL OF FILTH

A REVIEW OF GEORGES BATAILLE’S THE DEAD MAN (RAGGED LION PRESS, 2020)

by Tom Bland

RJ Dent’s masterful translation of Georges Bataille’s The Dead Man opens the work to the English speaking world. The work is essentially about the explosive lust that arises from grief: it may seem alien to connect the two, but psychoanalysis has often proposed a correlation between eroticism and mourning. I once read a case-study of a woman who masturbated for two days after she lost her father, which made me think of Bataille’s My Mother, where the main character masturbates while standing over the corpse of his mother in the funeral parlour.

In the opening of The Dead Man:

When Edouard fell back back dead, a vast emptiness opened up inside Marie. A prolonged shudder went through her, and lifted her up like an angel.

Marie seduces a rich Dwarf (with the title of Count) entangling him in the sexuality that erupts out of the “shudder”:

What Marie saw in the Dwarf’s eyes was the insistence of death.

…

On unsteady legs, she trembled.

Staring at the [Dwarf], she backed away.

Without warning, she vomited.

…

She looked at the pool of vomit in front of her.

Her torn and ripped coat was barely covering her body.

The book becomes more extreme as Marie’s world falls apart. As her life twists out of shape so does her libido, as the loss manifests as pure unadulterated desire like the cocaine only Kate Moss or Quentin Tarantino can afford. Marie needs to fuck but not the normal kind of fucking; her body explodes in the spontaneous acts of pissing, shitting, vomiting, which rip apart the confines of her life. The Dwarf has an erection throughout, and he is not the only one.

Marie went wild. She bared her teeth and bit down on the [Dwarf’s] cock, hard.

Pierrot dragged Marie off the [Dwarf]. He held her by the wrists, dragging her.

…

The [Dwarf] guided Pierrot’s cock into Marie…

Bataille describes everything in exquisite detail as if writing the notes for a case study he is going to submit to a psychoanalytic journal but he has yet to obscure the sexuality with technical terms such as the id, “the seething cauldron of excitation” [Freud].

“Stop staring at me,” Marie said, “or I’ll piss on you…”

She clambered onto the table and squatted.

“If you do, you’ll get me even more excited,” the [Dwarf] said.

…

Marie pissed on him.

The [Dwarf] received the stream of piss full in the face as Pierrot vigorously wanked his big cock.

RJ Dent’s translation of Bataille’s neglected work is superb and opens and lays bare the philosophical backbone of the work while remaining faithful to Bataille’s erotic story-telling. It is quite obvious that R J Dent is a poet and novelist himself by the way he opens up the intensity and the beauty of the language.

The Dead Man is published by Ragged Lion Press in a limited edition.

It is available at: https://www.raggedlionpress.co.uk/product-page/the-dead-man-georges-bataille-translated-by-r-j-dent

R J Dent’s books and information on current projects can be found at: www.rjdent.com

Tom Bland’s The Death of the Clown came out with Bad Betty Press in 2018, and his next book, Camp Fear, will be out in 2021. He trained in psychotherapy and dream analysis at SOPH/Middlesex University, and studied live art at UEL. He edits the online magazine, Spontaneous Poetics.

https://badbettypress.com/product/the-death-of-a-clown-tom-bland/

https://www.spontaneouspoetics.co.uk

Ritual of Filth: A Review of Georges Bataille’s The Dead Man (translated into modern English by R J Dent) – by Tom Bland – June 2020

 

R J Dent’s translation of Georges Bataille’s Le Mort

Poet, novelist and translator R J Dent discusses aspects of his new translation of one of Georges Bataille’s neglected works:

“In my new English translation of Georges Bataille’s The Dead Man, there is a three-page afterword by Bataille, explaining the genesis of his story. In that afterword, Bataille writes of a plane crash he went to investigate:

‘I remember one day hearing an aeroplane whose engine was in trouble.

After a series of splutterings faded into the near distance, there was a heavy, percussive shock. I got on my bicycle and pedalled in the direction of the crash. It took me a while to find the crash site.

It was burning in the centre of a large apple orchard. Trees near to the plane had been scorched black. Three, maybe four, bodies flung from the wrecked plane, lay dead on the grass.

It was a German plane, probably shot down by an English fighter somewhere over the Seine Valley, which was only a short distance away from where I was staying, which was why it had managed to get to the orchard before crashing.

A dead German airman…’

Georges Bataille’s crashed plane anecdote wouldn’t be out of place in one of J.G. Ballard’s books; it has the same detached and dispassionate tone and style. It was clearly a defining moment for Bataille, and its depiction of the horror of violent death in the midst of everyday calm is the same tone (and the same theme) that infuses The Dead Man.”

 

 

The Dead Man

Author: Georges Bataille

Translator: R J Dent

Language: English

Pages: 36

Format: A5

Published May 2020

Price: £3.75

 

The Dead Man by Georges Bataille

Originally published in 1967 as Le Mort by Jean-Jacques Pauvert

Translated into English by R J Dent

Translation Copyright © R J Dent (2020)

http://www.rjdent.com/

 

Cover Art by Alexander Adams

Image © Alexander Adams

https://www.alexanderadams.art/

 

Published by Ragged Lion Press in an edition of 100 copies

https://www.raggedlionpress.co.uk/product-page/the-dead-man-georges-bataille-translated-by-r-j-dent?fbclid=IwAR3G5uNz3gmkns0wGItoiCea4OQZ4YwLotVR7VNvBr5pHnSh_XxVfts-BuI

 

 

 

• 

Georges Bataille’s The Dead Man translated into modern English by R J Dent

R J Dent’s brand-new modern English translation of Georges Bataille’s The Dead Man, originally published in France in 1967, is now available in modern accessible English from Ragged Lion Press.

 

Georges Bataille’s The Dead Man, originally published as Le Mort, is the story of Marie, a woman who after witnessing the sudden death of her lover, Edouard, wanders naked and grieving through the night streets of a French town, sinking deeper and deeper into depravity as she seeks to escape the agony of loss…

 

R J Dent’s brand-new version of The Dead Man is the first twenty-first century modern English translation of Georges Bataille’s classic tale of devotion, depravity and damnation…

 

 

Product details:

Title: The Dead Man (Le Mort)

Author: Georges Bataille

Translator: R J Dent

Language: English

Pages: 36

Format: A5

Published May 2020

Price: £3.75

 

The Dead Man by Georges Bataille

Translated into English by R J Dent

http://www.rjdent.com/

Translation Copyright © R J Dent (2020)

Cover Art by Alexander Adams

https://www.alexanderadams.art/

Printed by Ragged Lion Press in an edition of 100 copies

https://www.raggedlionpress.co.uk/product-page/the-dead-man-georges-bataille-translated-by-r-j-dent?fbclid=IwAR3G5uNz3gmkns0wGItoiCea4OQZ4YwLotVR7VNvBr5pHnSh_XxVfts-BuI

 

A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed

OUT NOW! A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed: National Flash Fiction Day 2016 Anthology.

 

 

A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed is an anthology of flash-fictions, published to celebrate National Flash-Fiction Day (UK), and showcasing the very best talents to have written in this challenging miniature literary form. The stories in A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed are in a variety of genres, styles and forms, ranging from horror to romance, from fantasy to dark reality, from urban terror to comedy. Many of the stories in A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed will resonate with readers long after reading.

 

A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed

Contents

Foreword: The Editors

Before the Sun Comes Up: Tim Stevenson

Miss Scarlet in the Shed: Tracy Fells           

Cold Hands: Rhoda Greaves

Ambush: Richard Holt       

Outsider: Laura Huntley     

Theseus in Belleville: Anne Elizabeth Weisgerber

Bocca Baciata: Ruth McKee        

Health and Pleasure, Glorious Sea!: Sharon Telfer      

Gingerbread: Virginia Moffat

A Marionettist’s Musings While on a Park Bench: Charley Karchin

Bubblegum Barbie: Emily Devane      

Lifer: Adam Trodd       

Shirts – A Fable: R J Dent

Sam, 29: Martha Gleeson

Three Kids, Two Balloons: KM Elkes            

Who? What?: Ashley Chantler

Pub Quiz: Alison Wassell

Sushi and Kitty Cats: Kaitlyn Johnson

Desert Blossom: Annie Mitchell

Premiums: Ian Shine             

Misunderstanding: Vivien Jones        

Wakes Week: David Hartley      

Burning Faith: Frankie McMillan

Pigeon English: David Cook         

Kittiwakes: Catherine Edmunds

The Door Closes: Kevlin Henney

Clippers: Debbi Voisey      

I Go on the Morrow to Murder the King: Joy Myserscough

Special Delivery: Calum Kerr         

Grains: Joanna Campbell

Panda: Fat Roland          

Fish Supper: Laura Tickle         

The Vineyard: Catherine McNamara

What We Threw Into the Lake: Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

The Pleasure Principle: Rob Walton         

Onion: Damhnait Monaghan

My Aunt Aggie: Paul McVeigh      

A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed: Jon Stubbington

A Collection: Diane Simmons

Kelly Loves Traffic Light Jelly: Jeanette Sheppard

Yellow: Nuala Ní Chonchúir

424 Likes: Jennifer Harvey

Manspreading: Marie Gethins 

Wake Up: Oli Morriss          

When Dreams are Large and Tusked: Ingrid Jendrzejewski

Ten Things that Happened After My Funeral: Santino Prinzi     

What the Therapist Said: Jude Higgins        

Gregor Samsa Quits the Track Team: Beverly C. Lucey

Honesty’s Not the Best Policy: Brendan Way       

Orphans: Chris Stanley       

And the Red Flower: Nina Lindmark Lie

One Last Pickup: Sarah Hilary         

Sunday Morning: John Holland      

About Unemployment and Rats: Bernard O’Rourke

Captain Strix: Zoe Gilbert         

Latchkey: Fiona J. Mackintosh

Lips: Nik Perring         

Map Reading: Jane Roberts        

How to Make Lolo: Michelle Elvy       

Family Values: Jonathan Pinnock

Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night: Claire Fuller         

Hornet’s Nest: Sally Burnette      

The Taste of Sock and Rubber: Cathy Bryant       

In the Café: Sherri Turner       

On the Invisibility of the Deaf: Debbie Young

Flying Ant Day: Judy Darley          

Marzipan Bride and Groom: Sal Page

I Believe in You: Meg Pokrass        

When She Was Good: Safia Moore         

Injuries in Dust: Poppy O’Neill     

We Can Be Asteroids: FJ Morris             

Purple with a Purpose: Amanda Saint      

Little Ghosts: Jan Carson           

The Night Life of Wives: Angela Readman

The Jumper: Anne Patterson

A One-Word Yet…: Ingrid Jendrzejewski

Storm: Gemma Govier

Jessie Learns How to Keep A Secret: Alison Wassell

Illumination: Judi Walsh           

When Words Aren’t Enough: Lucy Welch          

Christmas: James Watkins

Always One: Tracy Fells           

Notes: Elaine Marie McKay

Energy Efficient, Extremely Slim, Easy to Install: Ed Broom

 

A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed: National Flash Fiction Day 2016 Anthology is out now!

To purchase the paperback edition of the anthology, please follow this link here: A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed. (paperback)

To purchase the e-book edition of the anthology, please follow this link here: A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed. (e-book)

Follow R J Dent’s work on:

Website: http://www.rjdent.com/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/R.-J.-Dent/e/B0034Q3RD4

Blog: https://rjdent.wordpress.com/

twitter: https://twitter.com/RJDent

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rjdentwriter

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/rjdent69

 

On Translating Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal into English – by R J Dent

One of the frustrations, the challenges, the problems – and probably the joys – of translating Baudelaire’s poetry is choosing the correct idiom to translate into.

Taking the words, sentences, phrases, lines, from the language of one country and translating them into the corresponding or equivalent language of another country is the type of work that can be done by almost anyone.

However, choosing the absolutely perfect cultural, social, geographical, spatial, historical, temporal and linguistic framework to put the translated words onto is another matter entirely, and will very much depend on the translator’s intentions and the receptive vocabulary of the proposed readership.

And when it’s poetry that is being translated, the task becomes even more complicated; the problems suddenly multiply. Read more…

R J Dent says: ‘I found translating Charles Baudelaire’s influential poetry collection Les Fleurs du Mal from French into modern English to be a rewarding, but challenging experience. This essay outlines some of the challenges and joys of the translation process.’

 R J Dent’s English translation of The Flowers of Evil is available at:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flowers-Evil-Artificial-Paradise-Nocturnal/dp/0979984777/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

 

On Translating Baudelaire

Copyright © R J Dent (2007 & 2016)

 

Follow R J Dent’s work on:

 

website: http://www.rjdent.com/

amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/R.-J.-Dent/e/B0034Q3RD4

blog: https://rjdent.wordpress.com/

twitter: https://twitter.com/RJDent

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rjdentwriter

youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/rjdent69

 

The Blood Delirium: The Vampire in 19th Century European Literature

 

‘R J Dent’s translations are fresh with an exciting raw sexual edge…’ (Candice Black)

 

The Blood Delirium is a definitive collection of 19th century European literature in which the vampire or vampirism – both embodied and atmospheric – is featured or evoked. Twenty-three seminal works by classic European authors, covering the whole of that delirious period from Gothic and Romantic, through Symbolism and Decadence to proto-Surrealism and beyond, in a single volume charged with sex, blood and horror.

 

The Blood Delirium contains a detailed introduction (by editor Candice Black) which not only examines these texts and their meaning, but which also charts the literary and cultural climate in which the new cult of the vampire was allowed to flourish.

 

The Blood Delirium includes texts by Bram Stoker, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde, J.M. Rymer, Charles Baudelaire, Le Comte de Lautréamont, Paul Féval, Maurice Rollinat, Guy de Maupassant, Count Stenbock, Jean Lorrain, Théophile Gautier, Charles Nodier, John Polidori, J.K. Huysmans, Charlotte Brontë, Ivan Turgenev, Jan Neruda, Augustus Hare, Cyprien Berard and Léon Bloy.

 

Several of the texts in The Blood Delirium are translated by R J Dent into English for the very first time, including those by Cyprien Bérard, Paul Féval, and Maurice Rollinat.

 

 

The Blood Delirium is the definitive collection for literate vampire-lovers.

 

The Blood Delirium is available from:

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Blood-Delirium-European-Literature/dp/0983884285

 

or from:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Delirium-The-Candice-Black/dp/0983884285

 

 

www.rjdent.com

 

Le Comte de Lautréamont’s The Songs of Maldoror translated by R J Dent

Le Comte de Lautréamont’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Le Comte de Lautréamont’s seminal classic, The Songs of Maldoror (Les Chants de Maldoror) is now available in R J Dent’s modern English translation:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the Independent’s review of The Songs of Maldoror:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-les-chants-de-maldoror-by-the-comte-de-lautr-amont-1632973.html

 

 

R J Dent discusses his translation of Le Comte de Lautréamont’s The Songs of Maldoror:

 

 

 

 

‘Lautréamont’s Songs of Maldoror [is] the black bible… almost the basic dream text of surrealism.’ J G Ballard 

 

 

R J Dent reads an extract from his translation of Le Comte de Lautréamont’s The Songs of Maldoror:

 

 

 

 

‘The Songs of Maldoror is an enigma of redoubtable power.’ Jacques Derrida

 

 

A promotional book trailer for R J Dent’s modern English translation of Le Comte de Lautréamont’s The Songs of Maldoror:

 

 

 

 

The Songs of Maldoror is ‘the expression of a revelation so complete it seems to exceed human potential.’ André Breton

 

 

R J Dent’s translation of The Songs of Maldoror is available from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Songs-Maldoror-Solar-Nocturnal/dp/0982046480

 

 

http://www.rjdent.com/

 

 

Charles Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil translated by R J Dent

 

Charles Baudelaire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charles Baudelaire’s seminal classic, The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du Mal) is now available in R J Dent’s modern English translation:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

R J Dent discusses his translation of Charles Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil:

 

 

R J Dent reads ‘I give you these verses…’ from his translation of Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil:

 

 

A promotional book trailer for R J Dent’s modern English translation of Charles Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil:

 

 

 

R J Dent’s translation of The Flowers of Evil is available from the University of Chicago Press:

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/F/bo10734555.html

and from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flowers-Evil-Artificial-Paradise-Nocturnal/dp/0979984777/ref=la_B0034Q3RD4_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381152776&sr=1-2

 

 

http://www.rjdent.com