Dalí's meditations on art and the "paranoid-critical method," plus poems and more

Salvador Dalí's writings from the period in which he was most closely allied with the Surrealists have never before been translated into English. These short fictions, essays and poems contain all the egotistic brio one might expect from Dalí, but they also reveal an earnest and even sentimental artist. They document Dalí's friendships with fellow Spaniards Luis Buñuel and Federico García Lorca, his entry into the world of the Parisian Surrealists, his passion for the emerging arts of photography and cinema, and the development of his "Paranoid-Critical Method," the theoretical basis for Dalí's work throughout his life. In 1934, Dalí and André Breton would break forever-"The only difference between me and a Surrealist is that I am a Surrealist," he later said-but in the period 1927-33, such distinctions were unnecessary.

The artist Dali's earliest writing, from the period in which he was most closely allied with the Surrealists, has never before been translated into English. This is both an entertaining and important work. Dali's well-known humor is in full evidence, but so is his serious attempt at forging a "paranoid-critical revolution".