Blanchot: Political Writings, 1953–1993

In early 2010, Fordham University Press is publishing Zakir Paul's translation of Maurice Blanchot's Ecrits politiques: 1953-1993.

This posthumously published volume collects his political writings from 1953 to 1993, from the French-Algerian War and the mass movements of May 1968 to postwar debates about the Shoah and beyond. A large number of the essays, letters, and fragments it contains were written anonymously and signed collectively, often in response to current events.

While political writings as such do not interest me, Blanchot's are an inevitable exception.

When read together, these pieces form a testament to what political writing could be: not merely writing about the political or politicizing the written word, but unalterably transforming the singular authority of the writer and his signature.