Fiction. Translated from the French by Lydia Davis. Jacques Derrida writes of THE MADNESS OF THE DAY that it is "a story whose title runs wild and drives the reader mad...la folie du jour, the madness of today, of the day today, which leads to the madness that comes from the day, is born of it, as well as the madness of the day itself, itself mad.... La folie du jour is a story of madness, of that madness that consists in seeing the light, vision or visibility, to see beyond what is visible, is not merely `to have a vision' in the usual sense of the word, but to see-beyond-sight, to see-sight-beyond-sight.... The story obscures the sun...with a blinding light"--Jacques Derrida (in Deconstruction and Criticism).

Author Hometown: Devrouze FRA



About the author: Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003) was a French writer, philosopher, and literary theorist. His work had a strong influence on later post-structuralist theorists such as Jacques Derrida. He is one of the most enigmatic and influential figures in modern French writing yet no interview, no biographical sketch, and hardly any photographs have ever been published of him.