"Mademoiselle Bambù" by Pierre Mac Orlan and Illustrations by Gus Bofa (Wakefield Press)

ISBN: 978-1-939663-25-2 Wakefield Press

Pierre Mac Orlan is a combination of mystery and a total delight. In such fashion, he reminds me a bit of Blaise Cendrars, but more of a figure that is abstract to me. "Mademoiselle Bambu" is a combination of detective/crime fiction mixed in with avant-garde touches of the time. It's a book that is dreamed more than written, but that's a sign that Mac Orlan is a fantastic writer and a literary adventurer. Wakefield Press outdid themselves in putting this book (text) together with the original illustrations by Gus Bofa, whose work is pretty magnificent throughout the book. Also a salute to the translator Chris Clarke for his work on this book.

"A Handbook For The Perfect Adventurer" by Pierre Mac Orlan (Translated by and with an Introduction by Napoleon Jeffries)

A little superb book by the great French 'unknown' writer Pierre Mac Orlan.  "Unknown' to English reading citizens because this may be the only book of his that is translated into English.  Mac Orlan is the ultimate figure in French literature that captures the lifestyle of a romantic writer who lived a great adventuresome life.   Or that is what one is lead to believe.  Nevertheless he was commissioned by the great Blaise Cendrars in 1920 to write a handbook for writers who want to either have adventure or more likely write an adventure narrative.

In this short book he recommends cities that are good for an adventure narrative as well as taverns and bars.  I suspect that his nature is very much in tuned to this type of location.   He puts the adventurer in two categories:  the active adventurer and the passive adventurer.   The passive fellow or gal are more likely the readers, who want to read the exploits of the active adventurer.  He gives plenty of advice for both class of adventurer.

For one hopes that there will be further books that will be translated into English by this wonderful wit,  for whom writers such as Boris Vian, Guy Debord and of course Cendrars are huge fans of the man as well as his work.   Another excellent book from Wakefield Press.

David B. & Pierre Mac Orlan's "The Littlest Pirate King"

My interest in this graphic 'novel' is the author Pierre Mac Orlan. A hero to Guy Debord, Mac Orlan was the Bohemian's Bohemian. Although a major writer in France, there is very little English translations of his works that are out there in the world.

I don't know the origins of "The Littlest Pirate King" except I have to presume that the narrative was written sometime in the early or mid-20th Century, and recently turned into a graphic novel by David B., who I know nothing about. But beyond that this is a wonderful little story about dead pirates who are somewhere between being a ghost and nowhere. All they do is float on their death ship from sea to sea. They can't even get enjoyment of killing another boat load of people, I due that they're dead - and therefore that's it. All they have is their memories. 

But alas, they find a living and healthy baby from a shipwreck and therefore they become sort of parents to this child. A splendid book and hopefully an introduction to the mysterious (at least to me) Pierre Mac Orlan.