Poetry. Translation. Translated from the French by Norma Cole, Lydia Davis, Serge Gavronsky and Cole Swensen. The serial poems in DISTANT NOISE present spare scenes shot through with surprise and the kind of truth found only in disorientation. Emperors and students gaze across landscapes of uncertainty, and ordinary human interaction has become a game of stilted gestures and official regulations. "Sublime and compelling and like no other work that exists today--whether French, American or Chinese. Jean Fr,mon is a wholly singular artist, a writer who lives in the radiant zone where poetry, philosophy and storytelling meet"--Paul Auster. Cover by Louise Bourgeois.