"Once upon a time there was a little boy who, when asked by his parents what he would like to be when he grows up, invariably replied: 'When I grow up, I'll sleep with the queen.'"

Powerful doses of black humor and surrealism distill the pages of Sleeping with the Queen and Other Delights, by the irreverent and corrosive French author of Polish roots Roland Topor. Reading his stories implies walking along the edge of his surname ("axe" in Polish) in the face of the imminence of the unexpected. The Toporian Banquet is served raw; he is invited to us as food for our own wonder.

Pat Andrea accentuates the powerful aspect of the cut of the toporian scenes, in human figures rebelled from proportion, in chromatic contrasts that multiply the attention exerted by the grotesque.