The first texts of German Dada by Hugo Ball, Richard Huelsenbeck and Walter Serner.
“The German contribution to the Dada movement (“DADA MEANS NOTHING!” proclaimed Tristan Tzara) as it unfolded in Zurich during the first World War is not widely known. This collection brings together three texts translated into English for the first time, which were essential for the very creation of the movement, and which influenced all its future developments in France, Germany, the USA and many other countries.
Included is the Dada novel, Tenderenda the Fantast, written by the movement’s founder Hugo Ball, sections of which he recited at the celebrated Cabaret Voltaire. It is partially a roman à clef recounting the birth of Dada and the author’s subsequent love-hate relationship with his monstrous creation, and yet is much more besides. Richard Huelsenbeck’s Fantastic Prayers was the first Dada poetry collection, and these precocious “Bruitist” poems clearly illustrate how the absurd elements in early Expressionism evolved into the bizarre eloquence of Dada. Finally, Walter Serner’s Last Loosening manifesto, the first major German manifesto written in Zurich, which provoked numerous brawls at its various performances and yet is hardly known. In fact it was the source for many of Tzara’s future literary provocations and seems to have been deliberately suppressed for this reason.
Three vital texts from one of the most enduring manifestations of the avant-garde of the last century.”
Text in English, translated and introduced by Malcolm Green, soft cover, 19 x 17cm, 176 pages, Atlas Anti-Classics 3, London 1995
