Somebody Else
In 1880 the poet Arthur Rimbaud, abandoning the bars and dives of Paris, London and Brussels, travelled to Aden (now in Yemen) and then on into east Africa, where he was to spend most of the next 11 years becoming ‘somebody else’.
Will Howard reads Charles Nicholl’s account of these 11 years with a seductive calm that draws attention powerfully to the extraordinary, barely believable twists and turns of Rimbaud’s life. Nicholl followed in Rimbaud’s footsteps, finding traces and hints of his life across the Arabian peninsula and in the city of Harar in Ethiopia. As well as an account of literary detection, this is a glimpse into areas of the world often given little attention, evoking their colours and smells, their complexities and their histories.
Published with Eland Books
Cover: Liana Finck