<div>At the age of twenty-five, Arthur Rimbaud--the infamous author of <i>A Season in Hell,</i> the pioneer of modernism, the lover and destroyer of Verlaine, the "hoodlum poet" celebrated a century later by Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison--turned his back on poetry, France, and fame, for a life of wandering in East Africa. <br><br>In this compelling biography, Charles Nicholl pieces together the shadowy story of Rimbaud's life as a trader, explorer, and gunrunner in Africa. Following his fascinating journey, Nicholl shows how Rimbaud lived out that mysterious pronouncement of his teenage years: "Je est un autre"--I is somebody else.<br><br>"Rimbaud's fear of stasis never left him. 'I should like to wander over the face of the whole world,' he told his sister, Isobelle, 'then perhaps I'd find a place that would please me a little.' The tragedy of Rimbaud's later life, superbly chronicled by Nicholl, is that he never really did."--<i>London Guardian</i><br><br>"Nicholl has excavated a mosaic of semi-legendary anecdotes to show that they were an essential part of the poet's journey to become 'somebody else.' Not quite biography, not quite travel book, in the end <i>Somebody Else</i> transcends both genres."--Sara Wheeler, <i>Daily Telegraph</i><br><br>"At the end of <i>Somebody Else</i> Rimbaud is more interesting and more various than before: he is not less mysterious, but he is more real."--Susannah Clapp, <i>Observer Review</i><br><br></div>