Paul Poissel was not born in 1848. As a young man, he did not set out to become the greatest Turkish architect in Paris. He did not fail to become the greatest Turkish architect in Paris. He never became a poet, or invented puzzles for an illustrated magazine. In 1904, he did not write this book, The Facts of Winter.
Paul La Farge has translated (from the original French) this collection of dreams--funny, haunting, enigmatic--all dreamed by people in and around Paris in 1881. La Farge's afterword investigates the Facts' creation, uncovering startling revelations, unknown truths, and new falsehoods.
La Farge is a frequent contributor to McSweeney's and is the author of Haussmann, or the Distinction, a New York Times Notable Book, and The Artist of the Missing, winner of the California Book Award. He is also a leading scholar on the work of Paul Poissel, one of the least known of the little-known French tiny metaphysician writers of the late 19th century.
"La Farge's book is a wispy reverie, and a collection of them too. An amnesiac's dream... barely there when closed in your palm, but opened, it performs sly thievery, nicking childlike flights of fancy lost to the magical realm between memory and imagination."
-Village Voice
"La Farge is a master storyteller with cleverness and inventiveness to spare."
-Philadelphia Inquirer
