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The Tribe
Between 1952 and 1954, Jean-Michel Mension haunted Saint-Germain-des-Prés as a member of the legendary Letterist International, direct progenitor of the Situationist International. In a series of conversations, Mension recounts this very particular vie de bohème whiled away with Guy Debord and a rogue's gallery of hard drinkers and thinkers.
The Tribe is a rare, vivid tour of a moment and milieu barely noticed at the time by the tourists who flocked to the Left Bank for a glimpse of Sartre & Co. The rich iconography includes many of Ed van der Elsken's celebrated photographs of "the tribe" and a trove of Letterist leaflets and posters. A rare, vivid tour of a moment and milieu barely noticed at the time by the tourists flocking to Saint-Germain for a glimpse of Sartre & Co.
"The Tribe relates the Parisian wanderings of a heterogeneous group of individuals who cultivated laziness and revolt, alcohol and talk, drift and chance, creative hopes and encounters . . . in quest of a Rimbaldian derangement of all the senses, of détournement of art and daily life in the defiance of order, by vandalism, by deliquency, but also by an altogether contemporary quest for a supersession of Marxism." —Le Monde libertaire
""In his oral memoir The Tribe, Jean-Michel Mension provides a useful context for [Guy] Debord's particular estrangement from postwar modernity. Mension reveals a multicultural dimension that is rarely explored in the burgeoning literature on this group . . . " —McKenzie Wark, Bookforum
"Mension, who began submitting writing to the Letterist journal at 18, recounts life in this fascinating, emphatically improvident, quasi-anarchist subculture, delivering vivid anecdotes and a still-fresh scoff-law sensibility." —Publishers Weekly
Jean-Michel Mension (1934 - 2006) misspent his youth in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the early 1950s before joining the Communist Party in 1962 and the Ligue Communiste in 1968. The Tribe is Mension's first book; he published his second in 2001: Le Temps gage: aventures politiques et artistique d'un irrégulier à Paris.
The Tribe is a rare, vivid tour of a moment and milieu barely noticed at the time by the tourists who flocked to the Left Bank for a glimpse of Sartre & Co. The rich iconography includes many of Ed van der Elsken's celebrated photographs of "the tribe" and a trove of Letterist leaflets and posters. A rare, vivid tour of a moment and milieu barely noticed at the time by the tourists flocking to Saint-Germain for a glimpse of Sartre & Co.
"The Tribe relates the Parisian wanderings of a heterogeneous group of individuals who cultivated laziness and revolt, alcohol and talk, drift and chance, creative hopes and encounters . . . in quest of a Rimbaldian derangement of all the senses, of détournement of art and daily life in the defiance of order, by vandalism, by deliquency, but also by an altogether contemporary quest for a supersession of Marxism." —Le Monde libertaire
""In his oral memoir The Tribe, Jean-Michel Mension provides a useful context for [Guy] Debord's particular estrangement from postwar modernity. Mension reveals a multicultural dimension that is rarely explored in the burgeoning literature on this group . . . " —McKenzie Wark, Bookforum
"Mension, who began submitting writing to the Letterist journal at 18, recounts life in this fascinating, emphatically improvident, quasi-anarchist subculture, delivering vivid anecdotes and a still-fresh scoff-law sensibility." —Publishers Weekly
Jean-Michel Mension (1934 - 2006) misspent his youth in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the early 1950s before joining the Communist Party in 1962 and the Ligue Communiste in 1968. The Tribe is Mension's first book; he published his second in 2001: Le Temps gage: aventures politiques et artistique d'un irrégulier à Paris.
- GenresArt
145 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 25, 2025
Two short passages from The Tribe:
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“Yes, in fact it was Serge Berna who cooked the thing up. Along with a few of his Letterist pals. You might say they were the crème de la crème of the neighborhood – the failed of the failed. The had written a leaflet called ‘Ratés’ [Failures] that said: ‘They portray us as DUDS, and that is what we are. We are nothing, we mean it, NOTHING AT ALL, and we intend to be of NO USE.”
*
“I myself did have a notion about the eighth art, about the transcendence of art: I believed that the only real art was life itself.”
*
*
“Yes, in fact it was Serge Berna who cooked the thing up. Along with a few of his Letterist pals. You might say they were the crème de la crème of the neighborhood – the failed of the failed. The had written a leaflet called ‘Ratés’ [Failures] that said: ‘They portray us as DUDS, and that is what we are. We are nothing, we mean it, NOTHING AT ALL, and we intend to be of NO USE.”
*
“I myself did have a notion about the eighth art, about the transcendence of art: I believed that the only real art was life itself.”
*
May 1, 2011
In "the Tribe", Jean-Michel Mension recalls his years of idle drunkenness at "Chez Moineau", alongside Guy Debord, Gil Wolman and other members of the pre-Situationist group "Internationale Lettriste". Presented as an oral history, the book is an incredibly vivid recollection of what it meant to be eighteen, unemployed, and revolutionary in early 1950s Paris. The numerous illustrations - photos, political pamphlets, newspaper excerpts and so on - are an indispensable complement to this oral/visual history of one of the most important political groups of the 20th century. Readers beware: only those deeply familiar with the Lettrist and Situationist movement will seize the richness of Mension's 100-page long interviews. This is NOT an introduction to the Situationists, but a true gem for aficionados and experts.
December 9, 2012
definitely about drinking. seriously, Mension is quite the alcoholic. guy debord shows up sometimes. its seven forty, i think I'm gonna have another beer tonight...
March 24, 2013
The dark side of the Letterist International. Wild and enlightening set of interviews and documents.
Thank you City Lights Books (@CityLightsBooks)
Thank you City Lights Books (@CityLightsBooks)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews