Note to the Reader

Although this book seeks to be faithful to Rimbaud’s character, artistic aims, and the general trajectory of his life, it is not, as fiction, captive to the facts or the strict flow of events. Quite the contrary.

In a life as enigmatic and contradictory as Rimbaud’s, the more I considered the facts, and the many missing facts—and the more I studied his blazingly prescient writings and poems—the more I found it necessary to bend his life in order to see it, much as a prism bends light to release its hidden colors. To be, if you will, more allegorical than historical, as befits a legend. I do this cheerfully, respectfully, and without apology.

This book, then, is as represented—fiction.