Listening with István Hollós

This paper discusses István Hollós's intervention in thinking about madness and psychiatric care, through his manifesto My Farewell to the Yellow House, written in 1927 and recently published in its English translation (1968 Press, 2024). Raluca Soreanu responds to Gloria Leff's paper in this issue, and puts the Yellow House book in dialogue with Hollós's 1914 piece, ‘On a Patient Who Recited Poetry’. Soreanu places Hollós's conception of language in the context of the Budapest School of Psychoanalysis and reflects on some of his philosophical affinities and on the ethical implications of his work. Ultimately, what traverses Hollós's texts is an ethics of opacity, which recognizes the languages of the Other. The paper also discusses Hollós's actuality, and the way his work on madness sparked a collective sound project, a sound art piece, and a response by a sculpture-artist – all engaging madness in its paradox of multi-tonal music without a community.