SEGALEN, Victor
In a Sound World

Victor Segalen in English! Life if full of possibilities. In a Sound World gathers the essay, “Synaesthetics and the Symbolist School”; a novel, In a Sound World, about an inventor lost in his own immersive harmonic space; and the libretto for Orpheus Rex, a collaboration with the composer Claude Debussy. This edition also includes an essay by the musician and cultural historian David Toop that explores the historical context of Segalen’s ideas.

Victor Segalen (1878–1919) had one of France’s most curious literary careers, applying his imagination to musicology, ethnography, exploration, medicine, synesthetics, Chinese history, and the occult.

Translated from the French by R. W. M. Hunt and Marie Roux.

Published by Strange Attractor Press, 2021
Literature / Essays / Music & Sound