This is the first collected English translation of Bataille’s poems. Bataille’s poetry is definitely the poetry of a philosopher, but it is also a poetry with an obsessively erotic, often scatological edge, frequently pushing the boundary of what is or isn’t obscene. Bataille believed that everything relates to the workings of desire and death in sexuality, but he also believed that poetry was the product of “hate” (and other extreme emotions), just as much as erotic pleasure accedes to self-annihilation. But Bataille was interested in actual action, not just disengaged hypothesis concerning the sexual act. Dufour Editions is pleased to bring Bataille’s poetry to print in English.
“Bataille produced some of the most transcendent, pointedly filthy literature of the century, and these poems, together in English for the first time, are no exception.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This is the audacious, frightful side of surrealism.”
—Library Journal
1999, 140 pages
ISBN 978-0-8023-1324-9 Hardback $29.95
ISBN 978-0-8023-13256 Paperback $15.95