I understand that the crisis at [Editions Gerard] Lebovici causes annoying troubles. Such a bizarre accumulation of follies, which has never before existed, has since last week reached the level of the lawyers. Such new practices appear to me to be the product of manipulations that aim, no doubt, at the disappearance of this publishing house and thus at a kind of freezing [de gel] of the books that have long been published by it (because this crisis is certainly not of a financial nature).
For the future, I suppose that I must find a suitable literary agent. And, concerning the past, I will try to review the books at Lebovici and lead them to liberate those titles of mine that they own as soon as possible.
For the moment, as it is obviously necessary to think that they still have the rights to Panegyric, Volume I, I believe that you must demand them immediately for a translation that has received my approval. And transmit to me quickly all of the news concerning their responses or their delays or, even better, their eventual refusal! Know that Madame [Anita] Blanc, a very dishonest person, was engaged in a conspiracy at least several weeks before the death of Floriana [Lebovici].
Thus, I await Sadie Plant's manuscript,[1] and I send you another copy of Alice's scholarly observations.[2]
When you finally come to Paris, I beg you to inform me a bit in advance, so that we are truly sure of seeing each other.
Cordially,[1] Translator's note: The Most Radical Gesture: the Situationist International in a Postmodern Age (Taylor & Francis, 1992).
[2] Translator's note: The Princes of Jargon (Editions Gerard Lebovici, 1990).
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009.)