Presents an introduction to the writing of French social theorist Roger Caillois (1913-1978). Presenting several documents and drawing on interviews and unpublished correspondence, this book reveals Caillois' consistent effort to reconcile intellectual rigor and imaginative adventure.
"Roger Caillois has remained relatively unknown in the English-speaking world. This superb selection of his essays, expertly translated, shows the full range of his thought and should place him next to Bataille and the Surrealists as a major intellectual figure in interwar and postwar France. Claudine Frank's general introduction and detailed commentaries on individual essays provide the necessary contexts for understanding this complex, often paradoxical thinker. A first-rate work that is sure to be of interest to all students of 20th-century French thought."--Susan Rubin Suleiman, author of" Risking Who One Is: Encounters with Contemporary Art and Literature"
