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On the Poverty of the Bookstore

Internationale Situationniste #11 (October 1967)

Translated by Reuben Keehan

WE HAVE BEEN FORCED to withdraw our publications from "La Vielle Taupe" bookstore. Its proprieter1 has too many revolutionary pretensions to be considered neutral with regard to the writings on display; and too little rigor in his activity to be considered revolutionary (allowing the prolonged presence and conversation of imbeciles, including Maoists).

More seriously: we formally deny that the bookseller and editor Georges Nataf (26 rue des Boulangers, Paris 5e) has ever been authorized by the situationists to present himself as responsible or liable for the publication or reissue of the journal Internationale Situationniste, or any other SI text. This imposture (whose motivations we imagine to be emotional rather than economic) was sharply refuted by us in June by means of a direct intervention which could not be ignored by anyone who knows him.

Note
1. Pierre Guillaume (b.1941), former member of Socialisme ou Barbarie, more recently a prominent negationist (or holocaust revisionist) and author of the interesting though somewhat questionable Guy Debord (La Vielle Taupe 1, Spring 1995).