Crystal Castles

"Les Paradis artificiels" – since the Lotus-eaters, mentioned by Homer in his Odyssey, the narcotic ecstasy was seen and represented in a variety of ways, a sensory flow that led to both hell and paradise. Many authors of considerable importance have plunged into narcosis, leaving astonishing testimonies from this dive: Thomas de Quincey, Theophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, Jean Lorrain, Jean Cocteau, Mikhail Bulgakov, Aldous Huxley, Philip K. Dick, William S. Burroughs and so on. And there were also creators who used their own poisons, neurotoxins, to construct their imaginary worlds.

Thus, we present our readers with the collection Crystal Castles, a tribute to all the artificial paradises projected by the narrative imagination in its long history. And also our invitation for a continuous voyage – because there are not only tales here, but also memory fables, plays, poems. Here, the multifaceted worlds created by Ramon Lasalle, Rhys Hughes, Fernando Naporano, Justin Isis, Fábio Waki, Jonathan Wood, Chris Mikul, D. P. Watt, Thomas Phillips, Stephan Friedman and Tristan Corbiere in the Adam Cantwell translation.