Isidore Isou was a young Jew in war-time Bucharest, and barely survived the Romanian Holocaust. He made his way to Paris where in 1945 he founded the avant-garde movement Lettrism, described as the missing link between Dada, Surrealism, Situationism and May '68.

In Speaking East Andrew Hussey presents a colourful picture of the post-war Left Bank, where Lettrist fists flew in avant-garde punch-ups in Jazz clubs and cafes and Isou, as sexy and as charismatic as the young Elvis, gathered around him a group of hooligan disciples who argued, drank and had sex with the Parisian intellectual elite.

This is a vibrant account of the life and times of a pivotal figure in the history of the avant-garde.