The Antonin Artaud Case. In Krytyka, No. 11-12 (181-182), 2012, pp. 35-36.

The article is devoted to the circumstances of Antonin Artaud’s life and death. The author emphasizes that for Artaud, unlike for the Surrealists, madness was neither a creative method nor an artistic project. His relationship with the psychiatric system of the time and its inhumane methods is demonstrated through the example of Gaston Ferdière, the psychiatrist who treated the writer in the last years of his life. A special role in the posthumous reception of Artaud’s work is assigned to his friend Paule Thévenin. The author assesses her negatively: in her view, by hindering the circulation of Artaud’s manuscripts and altering them at her discretion, Thévenin did not allow him to be heard even after his death.