Julien Torma

Julien Torma (6 April 1902 – 17 February 1933) was a French writer, playwright and poet who was part of the Dadaist movement.

A friend of Max Jacob and Robert Desnos, he was near the surrealist group without adhering to surrealism. He felt himself nearer to Alfred Jarry's 'pataphysics than André Breton's surrealism. Most of his writings were posthumously revealed by the French College of 'Pataphysique.

Torma disappeared in the mounts of Tyrol at the age of 30. Due to his elusive behaviour and the impossibility to check his life facts, i.e. no living or actual known family members, every writer he purportedly knew having died long before the publication of his books, no professional career, no fixed address, his body having never been recovered, etc, it has been suggested by some, including Jean-François Jeandillou, that Torma's existence may be fictitious. His purported birthday, 6 April, is marked as "the birthday of pataphysics" in the "pataphysics calendar".

The real writer who authored the first four publications and Porte battantes would have had to be using a pen name, as, according to the French institute for statistics INSEE, only three Torma births have been recorded in France since 1891, all between 1941 and 1965.

Publications

• The Obscure Lamp (1919)
• The Big Troche (1925)
• Cuts (1926)
• Euphorisms (1926)

Posthumous publications

• Lebordelamer. 1955.
• Le Bétrou. 1955.
• Porte Battante. 1963.
• Grabuge. 1998.
• Definitively incomplete writings. 2003.

See also

• List of people who disappeared mysteriously

References

• 4 Dada Suicides: Selected Texts of Arthur Cravan, Jacques Rigaut, Julien Torma & Jacques Vache (Anti-Classics of Dada) by Torma, Jacques Rigaut, Jacques Vache, and Arthur Cravan. Edited by Roger Conover, Terry J. Hale, Paul Lenti and Iain White. (1995) Atlas Press; ISBN 0-947757-74-0
• Julien Torma in Paris