On Bataille and Blanchot

Iconic French novelist, playwright and essayist, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) is widely recognized as one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, whose work has remained relevant and thought-provoking through the decades. The Seagull Sartre Library now presents some of his most incisive philosophical, cultural, and literary critical essays in twelve newly designed volumes.

‘There is a crisis of the essay,’ begins Sartre as he ventures into a long analysis of how the work of one of his contemporaries who might save this form—Georges Bataille. He reviews Aminadab, the important work of another hugely influential philosopher—Maurice Blanchot, through whom, writes Sartre, ‘the literature of the fantastic continues the steady progress that will inevitably unite it, ultimately, with what it has always been.’