The collective endeavour behind this book is not only praiseworthy, it is historical as well. No anthology collecting so many poems and short stories by Boris Vian in English translation has ever been published before. The reader will find here all of the poems from the collection Je voudrais pas crever (I wouldn't wanna die) as well as the 28 short stories which appeared posthumously in two previous books in French, Le Loup-garou (The Werewolf) and Le Ratichon baigneur (translated here as The Swimming Priest). Vian's first collection of short stories (Les Fourmis, 1949) was translated by Julia Older and published in 1992 under the title Blues for a Black Cat and Other Stories. As the late Noël Arnaud wrote in his preface to Le Ratichon baigneur, it is safe to say that today all of Vian's short stories are available, but now we are able to add: in English. Arnaud not only insists that the short story genre is a difficult one, but also hints at the fact that Vian is one of the rare French writers of his time to be so prolific in it. Notoriously, Vian cultivated a strong affinity for short texts, be they fictional, journalistic or satirical (even his novels, except Autumn in Peking, are relatively short). The short story offers a format that suits his tastes particularly well.