The Blaireau Affair is now available from Black Scat Books!

Alphonse Allais’s only novel, first published in 1899, has never been out of print in France, and has inspired four movies. It’s summer in the provinces, and Blaireau, the local poacher, is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. There are futile political squabbles, a memorably obtuse constable, a couple of charming but ridiculous love stories, too much bad champagne, and innocence is rewarded in the end. It’s the most extended fiction by Allais, the seminal absurdist who inspired Jarry, Duchamp, the Pataphysical College, and Oulipo. Doug Skinner has translated and annotated this delicious tale for its first appearance in English; it’s available from Black Scat Books in a handsome edition designed by Norman Conquest.

“An Alphonse Allais universe this little tender disordered universe of an intense and unalloyed logic” — Jacques Prévert