25 June 2008
free badiou extract
Although translations of Badiou have been fairly extensive and increasingly speedy, his fiction remains an unknown continent to most of his readers. In a way, it is understandable - his novels are extremely tricky, with massive modal shifts in tone, content and style. But I'm surprised no one has done any of the plays (or have they? Info to the usual address).
UPDATE: Susan Spitzer tells me she is currently working on L'Incident d'Antioche for a volume called Paul and the Philosophers edited by Ward Blanton and Hent de Vries. Excellent.
This story is taken from French Writing Today, ed. by Simon Watson Taylor (who also translates the story) (London: Penguin, 1968). The original reference is: Alain Badiou, 'Histoire de Duphort' from Almagestes (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1964). Other writers in the collection include Queneau, Ponge, Michaux, Beckett, Char, Genet, Ionesco, Robbe-Grillet, Vian, Duras and Sollers.
The biography for Badiou reads as follows:
'Born 1937 in Rabat, Moroco. Graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris with a degree in philosophy. At present lecturer in philosophy at the University of Reims. The short text printed in this volume, an extract from his first novel, Almagestes (1964), written between 1956 and 1960, must not be considered particularly 'representative' of an extremely diffuse and complex work. the second volume of what is intended to be a trilogy, Portulans, started in 1960, appeared in 1967. Badiou's critical articles include 'L'autonomie du processus esthétique' (Cahiers Marxistes Léninistes, September 1966), and a long essay on the Marxist philosopher L. Althusser (Critique, May 1967).'
[click on the images to enlarge them. Any problems, email me and I'll send you them]
UPDATE: Susan Spitzer tells me she is currently working on L'Incident d'Antioche for a volume called Paul and the Philosophers edited by Ward Blanton and Hent de Vries. Excellent.
This story is taken from French Writing Today, ed. by Simon Watson Taylor (who also translates the story) (London: Penguin, 1968). The original reference is: Alain Badiou, 'Histoire de Duphort' from Almagestes (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1964). Other writers in the collection include Queneau, Ponge, Michaux, Beckett, Char, Genet, Ionesco, Robbe-Grillet, Vian, Duras and Sollers.
The biography for Badiou reads as follows:
'Born 1937 in Rabat, Moroco. Graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris with a degree in philosophy. At present lecturer in philosophy at the University of Reims. The short text printed in this volume, an extract from his first novel, Almagestes (1964), written between 1956 and 1960, must not be considered particularly 'representative' of an extremely diffuse and complex work. the second volume of what is intended to be a trilogy, Portulans, started in 1960, appeared in 1967. Badiou's critical articles include 'L'autonomie du processus esthétique' (Cahiers Marxistes Léninistes, September 1966), and a long essay on the Marxist philosopher L. Althusser (Critique, May 1967).'
[click on the images to enlarge them. Any problems, email me and I'll send you them]
