The Blanchot Reader

by Maurice Blanchot, Michael Holland (Editor)

Maurice Blanchot remains a writer whose work, though often cited, is little-known to the English-speaking reader.
In The Blanchot Reader Michael Holland answers that urgent need and does so in a way that provides a coherent perspective on what by any standard is an extraordinary personal and intellectual career.

Genres: Philosophy

340 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 1995

About the author

Maurice Blanchot was a French philosopher, literary theorist and writer of fiction. Blanchot was a distinctly modern writer who broke down generic boundaries, particularly between literature and philosophy. He began his career as a journalist on the political far right, but the experience of fascism altered his thinking to the point that he supported the student protests of May 1968. Like so many members of his generation, Blanchot was influenced by Alexandre Kojeve's humanistic interpretation of Hegel and the rise of modern existentialism. His “Literature and the Right to Death” shows the influence that Heidegger had on a whole generation of French intellectuals.

Reviews

[Alex Obrigewitsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of writings fleshes out the corpse that is the absence lingering in abeyance throughout all of Blanchot's writing - his life.

This work seeks to situate Blanchot's writing and his thought biotopographically, locating the detours and the turns that his thought moved with throughout his life.

This collection is also helpful in that it provides translations of essays that are difficult to locate elsewhere.