Gerhard Richter-48 Portraits-Franz Kafka 1972 The French writer Jean Levy, who wrote under his wife’s surname as Jean Ferry worked mainly as a screen-writer for various French directors, including Henri-George Clouzot, the French Hitchcock, and was a pre-eminent expert on the work of that notable Surrealist precursor Raymond Roussel. Ferry only  book of fiction, the short story collection The Conductor and Other Tales, was initially published in a limited edition of 100 copies in 1950, then again in 1953 with a very laudatory introduction by The Pope of Surrealism himself, Andre Breton.

The Conductor and Other Tales is an absolute gem of a volume. Every tiny story perfectly conveys Ferry’s unique style that is comprised of equal parts charm, weariness and a subtle terror. As Michael Richardson writes, Ferry never appeared to have convinced himself that the world actually exists.

Andre Breton called Kafka, Or “The Secret Society” a…