The writing of the disaster = L'écriture du désastre / by Maurice Blanchot ; translated by Ann Smock.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blanchot, Maurice.

Contributor:

Smock, Ann, 1944-

Standardized Title:

Ecriture du désastre. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Blanchot, Maurice--Philosophy.

Blanchot, Maurice.

Literature--Philosophy.

Literature.

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

xiii, 152 pages ; 21 cm

Edition:

First paperback printing, new edition.

Other Title:

Ecriture du désastre.

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

Language Note:

Translation from the French.

Summary:

Modern history is haunted by the disasters of the centuryworld wars, concentration camps, Hiroshima, and the Holocaust - grief, anger, terror, and loss beyond words, but still close, still impending. How can we write or think about disaster when by its very nature it defies speech and compels silence, burns books and shatters meaning? The Writing of the Disaster reflects upon efforts to abide in disaster's infinite threat. First published in French in 1980, it takes up the most serious tasks of writing: to describe, explain and redeem when possible, and to admit what is not possible. Neither offers consolation. Maurice Blanchot has been praised on both sides of the Atlantic for his fiction and criticism. The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas once remarked that Blanchot's writing is a "language of pure transcendence, without correlative". Literary theorist and critic Geoffrey Hartman remarked that Blanchot's influence on contemporary writers "cannot be overestimated".

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [147]-150) and index.

ISBN:

0803261209

9780803261204

OCLC:

31739145

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description