Somebody Else

Rimbaud was the original enfant terrible. A poetic genius, he destroyed all those who attempted to befriend him, most notoriously wrecking the marriage and sanity of the poet Verlaine. Having conquered the literary world of Paris, he abandoned France and in August 1880 he disembarked in Aden, on the coast of Yemen, a lean twenty-five-year-old Frenchman carrying only a brown suitcase fastened with four leather straps and a touch of fever. Nicholl followed in Rimbaud’s footsteps, finding traces and hints of his life across the Arabian peninsula and in the city of Harar in Ethiopia. As well as an account of literary detection, this is a glimpse into areas of the world often given little attention, evoking their colours and smells, their complexities and their histories.

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A fascinating reconstruction of Rimbaud’s lost years.

Harry Ritchie

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Will Howard reads Charles Nicholl’s account of these 11 years with a seductive calm that draws attention powerfully to the extraordinary, barely believable twists and turns of Rimbaud’s life

Leigh Wilson

*

A thrilling hybrid of travelogue and detective story

Ian Thomson