What distinguishes this book from a great deal of other scholarly material is the way in which [Ungureanu] knits together the anecdotes and vignettes into a seamless overall picture of the spread of surrealist ideas between people. ... This is a book for a diverse readership. I imagine a reader new to surrealism who would be drawn into its world and set off afterward to find out more. There are enough passages of quoted surrealist writing and images included to tempt the new reader to a greater engagement. I can imagine a scholar of surrealism finding in it surprising new connections between familiar people and places. I can also imagine any researcher of modern and contemporary literature who might be inspired by the method to take an angled view of other literatures from a fresh perspective.

Comparative Literature Studies

From Paris to Tlön demonstrates a masterful knowledge of surrealism from its beginnings in France to its incorporation in literature and art in the present day. Ungureanu should be applauded for the extensive bibliography her study synthesizes and the insightful connections she makes between Breton, Dalí, and the many
“surrealists” who came in their wake. ... Ungureanu's study is ambitious in its breadth, meticulously researched, wide-ranging in its treatment of surrealism and its global impact, and a welcome addition for students and scholars alike interested in broadening their understanding of the genres, geographies, and international networks of the artists and writers associated with surrealism.

Canadian Review of Comparative Literature

Reading Delia Ungureanu's recent study From Paris to Tlön: Surrealism as World Literature evoked for me the sensation of walking along a well-worn and familiar trail, only to look up and realize that at some point the path had somehow shifted, and that as a result, the landscape surrounding me was suddenly reworked in startling ways, new and fresh.

Literary Research

In this pathbreaking study, Delia Ungureanu uncovers the circuitous routes by which a local Parisian movement became a global literary and artistic phenomenon. She unfolds the rivalries and the hidden debts of a gallery of larger-than-life figures, from André Breton and Salvador Dalí to Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, and Orhan Pamuk. With its compelling blend of cultural history, literary analysis, and scholarly detective work, From Paris to Tlön belongs in every surrealist's flea market and every comparatist's library.

David Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature, Harvard University, USA

From Paris to Tlön provides unexpected and innovative perspectives on very widely read, widely taught, highly admired masterpieces by brilliant, cosmopolitan aesthetic stylists: Borges's “Pierre Menard” and Nabokov's Lolita. The impressive scholarship includes real detective work in primary materials, especially little magazines across the world, and makes previously unrecognized connections, providing valuable coverage of Surrealism in North and South America and making the figure of Salvador Dalí more comprehensible. Anyone reading the book will learn something new from it, even beyond what we would call its big ideas. Essential for libraries and powerfully valuable for advanced students.

Jonathan Arac, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh, USA

A scintillating piece of 'detective literary criticism,' as Ungureanu aptly defines the genre of her study, From Paris to Tlön adds significantly to our knowledge and understanding of surrealism as a global phenomenon. Perhaps the single most original contribution of this book is to have demonstrated the seminality of surrealism for a number of important writers not habitually associated with the movement (Nabokov and Pamuk, amongst others).

Galin Tihanov, George Steiner Professor of Comparative Literature, Queen Mary University of London, UK