Rimbaud in Java

In A Season in Hell, at the age of eighteen, the French poet Arthur Rimbaud predicted the rest of his life: 'My day is done; I'm leaving Europe. The sea air will burn my lungs; lost climes will tan my skin.' Three years later, in 1876, he joined the Royal Army of the Dutch Indies as an infantryman and sailed for Java, where he promptly deserted and fled into the jungle. It was the most enigmatic passage in his life crowded with puzzles and contrarieties. In the first book devoted to Rimbaud's lo