The acts of excess, atrocity and aberration of the Roman Emperors have provoked richly obsessional responses from innumerable writers over the centuries. "Heliogabalus is Artauds greatest and most revolutionary masterpiece: an incendiary work that reveals both the divine cruelty of the Roman Emperor and that of Artaud himself." - Stephen Barber Reflecting its authors preoccupations with the occult, magic, Satan, and a range of esoteric religions, this account of Heliogabalus reign invents incidents in the Emperors life in order to make the print of the authors own passionate denunciations of modern existence. Written in 1933, at the time when Artaud was preparing to stage his legendary Theatre of Cruelty, Heliogabalus is a powerful concoction of sexual excess, self-deification and terminal violence. Translated into English for the first time, this novelized biography of the 3rd-century Roman Emperor Heliogabalus is simultaneously Arauds most accessible and his most extreme book.
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