"Voyage à Alamût" (2026)

 

Paris, France: Éditions Allia (book), 2026.
6.75" x 4" x 0.375", 118 numbered pages, softcover, ISBN 979-10-304-1945-0.

The first stand-alone edition of Brion Gysin's Voyage à Alamût in French ["A Quick Trip to Alamut" in English], as published as a softcover edition by Éditions Allia (Paris, France) in 2026. This comes from Gysin's "Yoyage en Perse" journal of travel with Lawrence Lacina. Preface by Bernard Heidsieck. Postface and "Post-Postface" by Nathalie Heidsieck de Saint Phalle. This additionally includes an interview with Lawrence Lacina from Warten, issue 2, 1991. Translations in this book are by Olivier Borre and Dario Rudy. 

Alamut is the mountain fortress of Hassan-i-Sabbah ("Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted") and his Hashisheens, a subject of interest to Gysin since reading Betty Bouthoul's books on the topic.

This text by Gysin was published in part in The Kerouac Connection, issues 29 (1998) and 30 (2000), but was not published in full (in English) until Jason Weiss' Back in No Time: The Brion Gysin Reader (Wesleyan, 2001). The full text was also published in English in Ultraculture Journal (Ultraculture Incorporated, 2014).

This copy was acquired as a kind gift from James Pennington of Aloes Books (London). 

Contents: 

• Bernard Heidsieck: Preface
• Brion Gysin: Voyage à Alamût
• Warten and Lawrence Lacina: "Quelle est la question?" (interview)
• Nathalie Heidsieck de Saint Phalle: 
• "Postface: Alamout, A Quick Trip through Time"
• "Post-Postface"
• Brion Gysin and Lawrence Lacina: photographs