Books by Jean Cocteau

At home, Paul shares a private world with his sister Elisabeth, a world from which parents are tacitly excluded. All that they do outside is effectively controlled by the rules of the Game: unfortunately the rules of the Game prescribe that the two children must die...

In 1949, Jean Cocteau spent twenty days in New York, and began composing on the plane ride home this essay filled with the vivid impressions of his trip. With his unmistakable prose and graceful wit, he compares and contrasts French and American culture: the different values they place on art, literature, liberty, psychology, and dreams. Cocteau sees the incredibly buoyant hopes in America's promise, while at the same time warning of the many ills that the nation will have to confront-its hypocrisy, sexism, racism, and hegemonic aspirations-in order to realize this potential. Never before translated into English, Letter to the Americans remains as timely and urgent as when it was first published in France over seventy years ago.

Jean Cocteau's iconic play explores our desperate need for human relationships - and the machine that has changed them forever. A brand new version of this classic text is translated by Daniel Raggett and staged at the Gate Theatre 34 years since it was first produced there.

The meaning of poetry and the sociological and political significance of art are dealt with in these letters. Jacques Maritain (18 November 1882–28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he is responsible for reviving St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pope Paul VI presented his "Message to Men of Thought and of Science" at the close of Vatican II to Maritain, his long-time friend and mentor. Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright, artist and filmmaker. Along with other Surrealists of his generation (Jean Anouilh and René Char for example) Cocteau grappled with the "algebra" of verbal codes old and new, mise en scène language and technologies of modernism to create a paradox: a classical avant-garde. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Pablo Picasso, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Édith Piaf, whom he cast in one of his one act plays entitled Le Bel Indifferent in 1940, and Raymond Radiguet.

Under foregivende er en roman om at lyve og bedrage i den bedste mening og om det komplicerede forhold mellem virkelighed og blændværk, identitet og skæbne. Under første verdenskrig bliver den purunge Guillaume Thomas taget for en højtstående generals nevø, og han ser ingen grund til at rette misforståelsen, som bringer ham frem i geledderne til selve krigens hjerte. Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) udgav romanen i 1923 under titlen Thomas l'imposteur.