"Alter Ego is the first monograph in English on the critical writings of Michel Leiris (1901-90). A groundbreaking autobiographer and pioneering ethnographer, Leiris also produced important criticism on art, opera, jazz and literature, which acts as a key commentary on twentieth-century intellectual movements and demonstrates vividly the constant refashioning and reformulation of contemporary ideas and aesthetics. Hand defines and situates Leiris's core themes, analyses his criticism in each of the art areas examined, and delineates the model that emerges of a contrapuntal and heterogeneous critical identity."