On the publishing and republishing of SI texts. From Internationale Situationniste #11 (October 1967).
Concerning Our Distribution
With the 10,000 copies of the first French edition of our pamphlet On the Poverty of Student Life having sold out in two months, the SI released a second edition in March, also running to 10,000 copies. In the months that followed, the pamphlet was translated and reissued in a number of different countries. In England, an initial complete translation was followed by an expanded edition including annotations and the text 'If you make a social revolution, do it for fun' under the general title Ten Days that Shook the University: The Situationists at Strasbourg. In the United States, another translation was issued in New York care of Tony Verlaan; while an abridgment of a different translation (by Jim Evrard) was published in Seattle. In Sweden, a complete translation, done by Anders Löfqvist and Gunnar Sandin, was released in Lund, then in Stockholm.
Extracts have appeared in the Spanish revolutionary journal Acción Comunista, and the Italian journals Nuova Presenza in Milan and Fantazaria in Rome (the latter with an introduction by Mario Perniola, who published an article in favor of the SI, 'Art and revolution,' in the journal Tempo presente in December). Other yet-to-be-published unabridged translations have been completed in Spain, Holland, West Germany and Denmark.
Our English-language brochure on the Watts uprising (The Decline and Fall of the Spectacular-Commodity Economy) was reproduced in the London journal Cuddon's1 . In the same year, Vaneigem's text 'Basic Banalities' was published in pamphlet form under the title The Totality for Kids (translated by Christopher Gray). This pamphlet should be reprinted shortly. The first issue of an English journal, Situationist International, will appear in early 1968.2 3
In January, the SI published the tract Attention! Three Provocateurs, explaining the ignominious exclusion of the Garnautins (this document is still available from us on request).
In August, The Explosion Point of Ideology in China was published as a pamphlet whose entire run was almost completely sold out within six weeks.
5,000 copies of the current issue of Internationale Situationniste have been printed.
Translated by Reuben Keehan. From https://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/concerning.html
- 1Cuddon's Cosmpolitan Review #10 (August 1966)
- 2Translator's note: With the resignation of Charles Radcliffe in November 1967 and the exclusion of the rest of the English section the following month, the projected journal was never released. See 'The latest exclusions'(I.S. #12).
- 3Libcom note: The English section went on to become King Mob.
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