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A collection of selected works by the French avant-garde writer, theatre reformer and philosopher Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) is offered to the Ukrainian reader for the first time. The concept of the theatre of cruelty, outlined by Artaud in his collection of essays «The Theatre and its Double», is not just another methodology of avant-garde theatre. The framework here is much broader. Artaud sees such seemingly incompatible phenomena as plague, alchemy, metaphysics and cruelty, which in Artaud's view has cosmic dimensions and is a kind of life principle. Artaud calls for a questioning of narrow notions of culture and, referring in particular to the traditions of oriental theatre, tries to find a true, magical culture that corresponds to true poetry and the quintessence of real life.

The first part of the publication includes Antonin Artaud's famous collection of essays «The Theatre and its Double». The second part is a kind of double of the first, theoretical part, it presents works for the stage - plays and scripts, including the only play written on the principles of the Theatre of Cruelty, "Chenchi", the script of the only film made by Artaud, "The Pastor and the Shell" and other works, as well as letters and manifestos of the writer.

The publication ends with an essay by literary critic Tetiana Ogarkova «Free and Mad Antonin Artaud».