Maurice Blanchot is perhaps best known as a literary critic. His texts on Kafka, Mallarme, Beckett and others make him one of the most influential critics of twentieth century literature. But he is equally influential as an incisive reader of philosophy through his enigmatic interpretations of Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida.
Leslie Hill offers a clear and comprehensive introduction to one of the key figures in the development of postmodern thought. He shows how Blanchot questions the very essence of philosophy and literature, and stresses the importance of his political writings and the relationship between writing and history that characterized his later work.

Leslie Hill is Reader in French Studies at the University of Warwick, and the author of Beckett's Fiction: In Different Words and Marguerite Duras: Apocalyptic Desires.

1 An intellectual itinerary 2 The (im)possibility of literature 3 Writing the neuter 4 The absence of the book 5 Extreme contemporary