Guide du Paris surréaliste

Some places still exist, like the Deux Magots, the Closerie de Lilas or the Studio des Ursulines (in 1929, Buñuel filled his pockets with a stock of pebbles to throw on the public if they did not like his movie Un chien andalou). Other venues have disappeared, such as the apartment at 54, rue du Château in the XIVth arrondissement, where Marcel Duhamel, Desnos and Prévert used to meet, or Studio 28, where the L’Age d’or was first projected. Together they draw up the ideal geography of a Surrealist Paris between the two wars. This Vademecum, which unfortunately lacks a street index, does not pretend to be a dictionary but rather a selection of strolls focused on the major names of the movement. We thus follow Aragon along the covered passages on the right bank, Crevel all the way to the cemetery of Montrouge where he is buried, Soupault along the quais of the Seine, Breton between the rue Fontaine and the hotel des Grands-Hommes. A way of lifting one’s eyes and placing the avant-gardes in the topography.

• Guide du Paris surréaliste directed by Henri Béhar, éditions du Patrimoine, 2012, 200 p., €25.