Love and Invention with paper boat

Les Editions du Délirium


This is a page about the publisher of LOVE AND INVENTION.


It should give a little insight in to who they are, what they do and why they published Love and Invention.

Why did Les Edtions du Délirium decide to publish Love and Invention?

We'd known Ben for a few years. He'd done work for us as a translator, consulted on English language projects and also on a couple of occasions he had been in residency with Délirium where he'd worked on a book, constantly talking, asking questions and filming things.


The book later turned out to be LOVE AND INVENTION and the subject matter wasn't just interesting to us, it was kind of written in parallel to us and, at least parts of it, in our presence. Ben's work has a way of not fitting correctly in to categories and this for some has been a worry, but for us it is delicious. Art comes from people who are prepared to push the boundaries or just ignore them altogether.


Ben's writing is robust, as is his story-telling - he's been writing for years, not just fiction but also for advertising, journalism and all kinds of copy, and the weight if his experience shows.


The key themes of the book are ones we love: the dream of flight, dancing, inventing things, questioning existence, love… It's a beautiful book with rich characters and a clever and delicately constructed plot. We love the unusual and Quixotic and this book ticks all the boxes.


When Ben approached us to publish him, we didn't hesitate. We said yes straight away.

What is Le Délirium and why do you publish books anyway?

Editions du Delirium logo

Le Délirium is lots of things. In legal terms it is an association, based in Avignon in the south of France, with the aim of furthering artistic creation.

In practical terms what we're best known for is organising events. We're fortunate enough to have this great space in the centre of Avignon, where for many years now we have run a late night cabaret during the Avignon festival (which is the biggest theatre festival in the world). Our cabaret though is not like any other, the music is what ever we find amazing, often from far flung corners of the world, from Russian folk music to African funk and French transvestites and American soul to name but just a handful... The music goes on until dawn.

Our main interest though is art, (painting, sculpture, performance, philosophy, maths, oddyssey, stories, a little folie...) and the occasional glass of wine. Le Délirium is a space for artistic events and residencies. We've produced CDs of street singers and published books on what ever we find beautiful from cookery to a heretical life of Christ. We produced a poetic art-house film on Existential Mathematics and we're now plotting to send a sailing boat around the world to place four buoys in the ocean at the points where the feet of the Eiffel Tower would come out if they were extended down through the earth's crust and out the other side. This isn't a hard mosed, time-means-money type of enterprise, but this is what life is made out of for us.