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The Writing of the Disaster
Contributor(s): Blanchot, Maurice (Author), Smock, Ann (Translator)
ISBN: 0803261209     ISBN-13: 9780803261204
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
OUR PRICE:   $19.00  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: May 1995
Qty:
Annotation: 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".
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | European - French
Dewey: 848.912
LCCN: 94046856
Physical Information: 0.43" H x 5.27" W x 7.96" (0.41 lbs) 153 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - French
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Modern history is haunted by the disasters of the century--world 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.