Against the Grain

Joris-Karl Huysmans, a key figure in the French decadent movement, was born on February 5, 1848, in Paris, France, and passed away on May 12, 1907. A civil servant by profession, Huysmans cultivated his literary career with works that explored the aesthetics of contrariness and excess. His seminal novel, 'Against the Grain' ('À rebours'), published in 1884, is widely considered a manifesto of deca...