Les Figues Press

11/15/2023

Thank you Johanna Blakley!

09/21/2023

https://punctumbooks.pubpub.org/pub/punctum-introduces-special-collections-les-figues/release/6

In case you missed this news! There are now six LFP books available in beautiful second editions! More coming!

We need to multiply and also invent new trade routes and modes of exchange for disseminating intellectual work—going for baroque, or broke—and we also need the courage (or wise foolishness) to depart to extraterritorialities not bathed in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the academy “proper.....

11/04/2021

RSVP by midnight tonight for Mrs. Porter's next Virtual Art & Literary Salon on Sunday, Nov. 7, 3-5pm PT. Join restless souls from around the world as they share their current work (or work that inspires them) with an intimate community of strangers. RSVP: https://echotheatercompany.com/mrs-porters/ Echo Theater Company

a theatre company

11/03/2021

RSVP by tomorrow midnight for Mrs. Porter's next Virtual Art & Literary Salon on Sunday, Nov. 7, 3-5pm PT. Join restless souls from around the world as they share their current work (or work that inspires them) with an intimate community of strangers. RSVP: https://echotheatercompany.com/mrs-porters/ Echo Theater Company

a theatre company

08/26/2021

Feeling isolated? Join Mrs. Porter's merry group on Sunday 3pm Pacific & see what we create together. There are only a couple spots left in our Echo Theater Company Zoom Room - RSVPs are due midnight tonight!

a theatre company

08/24/2021

Mrs. Porter is howling at the moon again - that dame cannot be tamed! Join us for her infamous art & literary salon this Sunday, 8/29, at the Echo Theater Company Zoomosphere. RSVPs due by midnight Thursday: https://www.echotheatercompany.com/mrs-porters/

08/21/2021

We'll be blue-mooning with Mrs. Porter on August 29th - RSVP by Thursday to save your spot at her rousing Art & Literary Salon in the Echo Theater Company Zoomosphere.

https://www.echotheatercompany.com/mrs-porters/

08/12/2021

Mrs. Porter found a poem and now she’s saying dammit. You can dammit, too. RSVPs are now open for the August 29 salón. Limited spots - RSVP here: https://www.echotheatercompany.com/mrs-porters/

06/24/2021

What in the world, Mrs. Porter? Or rather: Mrs. Porter is out and about. Lady Smotherman snapped this pic in Cairo, and while Lady S tried to speak to Mrs P, she simply couldn’t meet more than her shadow. Though later, Mrs P sent a postcard saying: Shadow work! It’s time! Also, this Sunday, June 27, she is hosting a salon in the Echo zoomsphere.

RSVP: https://www.echotheatercompany.com/mrs-porters/

02/18/2021

What happened, Mrs Porter?

Oh don’t you want to know.

Mrs Porter resurrects in the Echo Theater Zoomsphere. Feb 28, 3pm PST.
RSVP++ required!

01/25/2021

Save the date: 3pm PT February 28th. Link in bio.

10/20/2020

Just released: An Austrian Avant-garde!

A collection that re-visions the Austrian avant-garde, translated and published for the first time in English.
After 1945, a vibrant literary avant-garde emerged in Austria that has remained mostly unknown outside of the country. Their first publications appeared in a cultural and political environment still largely determined by seven years of Na**sm (1938-1945) and four years of Austrofascism (1934-1938). Its writers drew on traditional and experimental methods to hollow out existing literary conventions and propose new ones, using montage, appropriation, satire, irony, and nonsense. Despite many shared intentions, though, the Austrian avant-garde was far from unified. Some of its writers repeated the authoritarian gestures and practices of the fascist period; others contributed to the creation of feminist and q***r counterpublics by creating alternative presses, new kinds of literary events, and political writers’ collectives.

An Austrian Avant-garde offers a critical survey of experimental writing from Austria that captures the tensions inherent in the history of the avant-garde. Starting with texts from the 1950s by the Vienna Group, the anthology offers a survey of the complex, contested landscape of post-1945 Austrian literature, with an emphasis on the work of women writers. The editors’ preface and their introductions to individual texts offer contextualization and commentary that make the anthology accessible to a wide readership.

Cover art: Lora Sana III, 2005, by Carola Dertnig

10/20/2020

Happy Birthday to Elfriede Jelinek! She is included in our new anthology “An Austrian Avant-Garde,” the first feminist collection of Austrian experimental writing in English. Photo credit: Renate Mangoldt

10/19/2020

“An Austrian Avant-Garde” includes “After Nora” by Elfriede Jelinek. It’s a continuation of Jelinek’s first play, “What Happened After Nora Left Her Husband; or Pillars of Society,” from 1979, based on characters from Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.” “After Nora” looks at women’s work in an age when most clothing production has been moved out of the wealthiest countries and takes place “elsewhere, always elsewhere.”

10/19/2020

Elfriede Gerstl (1932-2009) is a key figure in contemporary Austrian literature. Her poetic sensibility of resistance is sometimes startlingly direct, sometimes ironic and even cheery. “An Austrian Avant-Garde” features three of her texts, including “yes sir, doctor! a selection of medical finds,” a transcript of her doctors’ misogynist utterances, and “pop song text,” an ironic paean to normalcy. “I demand that Elfriede Gerstl’s work be read for the next hundred years (and even longer). Hers is a voice in Austrian literature that can never fall silent.” – Elfriede Jelinek @ Vienna, Austria

10/17/2020

Forever Figues! Took this pic and realized Rosetti near Dennis Cooper is oh so right.

***rlit

10/16/2020

An ideal during a pandemic

10/15/2020

Here we are—Still Mess Boom—ten years after Douglas Kearney made this interactive text as part of Not Content—a year-long Les Figues’ curation at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 2010. While planning, Doug and I spoke about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico earlier that year. A study published this year documents the long-term heath effects of that spill, including increased levels of anxiety, depression, and respiratory issues among people living on the Gulf Coast.

Who is watching the town halls tonight?