This text was published under its original title Revenir a Breton in the newspaper Le Monde, on Friday, February 16, 1996, to mark the centenary of the birth of André Breton (February 18 or 19, 1896) and thirty years since his death (September 28, 1966).

Julien Gracq, after a brief yet incisive analysis of the historical trajectory and ideological positioning of surrealism, connects it to the Parisian May of 1968 movement, considering that its unexpected explosion 'which, beyond a political revolution, sought to change life according to the dictates of desire, here and now, directly and without deadlines,' and which so violently shook the entire established left, even affecting its language and forms, concerned, often without realizing it, much more with Breton than with Sartre and Aragon...

[Excerpt from a text on the publisher's website]