Empire of the Senseless by Kathy Acker

'This book is dedicated to my tattooist.'

Born in 1948, avant-garde novelist Kathy Acker hung out in New York with the FLUXUS group and underground filmmakers in the '60s. At Brandies University she studied with Herbert Marcuse, following him to UC San Diego. Back in New York she studied with Jerome Rothenberg and hung out in the early punk scene while writing art criticism, book reviews and prose pieces. Her libretto, The Birth of a Poet, wad produced as an opera at the Brooklyn Academy of music. 

Throughout the following decades Kathy Acker wrote thirteen novels, whose sexually explicit language, multiple personas, plagiarism and sheer linguistic inventiveness embodied a subversive sensibility. Her novels were described as everything from post-punk porn to post-punk feminism, first person narratives which combine detailed eroticism with detailed politics and what Acker called 'pop content'. 

Here we have a copy of her scarce novel Empire of the Senseless. Featuring illustrations by Acker throughout.

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Cover Illustration by Robert Mason

Published by Picador, 1989

Condition: Creased front cover as shown in photo and an inscription on the first page