Translated by Krzysztof Filjalkowski and Michael Richardson
Winner of the 1987 Prix Goncourt for Biography
Georges Bataille (1897-1962), philosopher, writer and founder of the influential literary review Critique, had an enormous impact on the thinking of Foucault, Derrida and Baudrillard, and his ideas have been the subjets of recent debates in a wide range of disciplines.
In this acclaimed intellectual biography Michel Surya enters into a complicity with Bataille's oeuvre to provide a detailed exposition of its themes as they developed against the backdrop of his life. The essence of Bataille's life and work were defined by transience and effacement, reflecting a will both to contest the impermanence of things and to confront death. His troubled childhood, his relationships with surrealism and his paradoxical position at the heart of twentieth-century French thought are enriched here with testimonies from Bataille's closest acquaintances, making this a vivid and detailed study. Revealing the contexts in which he worked, and the ways in which his work and ideas took shape, Surya sheds essential light on a figure Foucault described as "one of the most important writers of the century."
- ISBN10 1859848222
- ISBN13 9781859848227
- Publish Date 17 September 2002
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 7 April 2010
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Verso Books
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 608
- Language English