I am one of the many out there who have heard of Arthur Rimbaud and that he was a French poet but haven’t actually read anything by him. The most interesting thing I’ve taken from this book is the knowledge of how little he wrote, you’d think he would have had a huge catalogue of work, in fact there was one small collection of poems and that was it really, the odd little bit here and there but that was published by others.

There has been a huge amount of effort put into this book, Nicholl is quite the detective, tracing the footsteps of Rimbaud to not just find out where he went in Africa but also investigating his early life to find out why he suddenly up’d and left to become a trader in Africa. The information that Nicholl is working with is a small collection of letters, a lot of hearsay, the odd photograph and research carried out by other biographers. A tough job to carry out indeed, by carefully working through the data he does his best to filter out the truth from all the fiction. The reader is always told where Nicholl has got the information and whether he thinks it is right or wrong and gives his reasons, I think he has done a great job at keeping his passion at bay to not get angry at previously untrue “facts” and to not get carried away when he has a breakthrough.

The photos are a great addition, they show you where Rimbaud lived and those people in his life, there are also a number of selfies and interesting enough they add to the myth, slightly dark and out of focus, just giving you a glimpse of the man and not the whole story. Nicholl’s writing is superb, it kept me engrossed the whole time, he goes very in-depth when he has proven facts and also has the odd tangent to expand on the writing, it all works very well and I’m left feeling I know Rimbaud well…next stop is finding a copy of “A season in hell”. Anybody looking to find out more about Rimbaud’s life won’t go wrong if they start here.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/01/31/somebody-else-arthur-rimbaud-in-africa-1880-91-by-charles-nicoll/