How five dissident poets applied Surrealism to everyday life under totalitarian rule
A collective biography of the Surrealist group Infra Noir, Powers of No reveals an important chapter in the history of the postwar European avant-garde. Detailing the group’s innovative program for cultivating community and political resistance, Catherine L. Hansen examines how its five members reimagined Surrealism as a means to endure life under totalitarianism and war.
Encompassing the careers and friendships of Gherasim Luca, Gellu Naum, Trost, Paul Păun, and Virgil Teodorescu, Powers of No is the first English-language book about this Francophone Romanian group active between 1941 and 1947. The members of Infra Noir created radical art and publications that attracted the attention of André Breton and other central figures in the wider Surrealist movement. Charting their course from the Bucharest avant-garde amid the rising tide of fascism through the turbulent intellectual and political scene of postwar France and Stalinist repression, Hansen unpacks the concepts this group developed, which envisioned new possibilities for emancipatory thought and praxis.
Grounded in a wealth of archival materials and original translations, Powers of No situates the unique legacy of Infra Noir’s revolutionary project among the various intellectual currents of a tumultuous era. Establishing Infra Noir as more than an obscure clique of dissident poets and artists, this book presents their work as a repertoire of lessons for resisting authoritarian oppression and avoiding despair even under the harshest political conditions.
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