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From: VersoMail Verso
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 9:36 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: New from Verso: The Conspiracy by Paul Nizan and The Unseen by Nanni Balestrini
NEW EDITIONS:
THE CONSPIRACY
by PAUL NIZAN
and
THE UNSEEN
by NANNI BALESTRINI
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THE CONSPIRACY
By PAUL NIZAN
With a New Foreword by JEAN-PAUL SARTRE and a Previously Unpublished Essay by WALTER BENJAMIN
Published: 16 January 2012
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THE CONSPIRACY is the last and most acclaimed novel by French writer and activist PAUL NIZAN, who died two years after its publication fighting the Germans at the Battle of Dunkirk. THE CONSPIRACY won the coveted Prix Interallié in 1938. This new edition includes WALTER BENJAMIN’S political assessment of the book, available here for the first time in English.
Hailed by JEAN-PAUL SARTRE as Nizan’s masterpiece, the book centres upon the figure of Bertrand Rosenthal, a misguided philosophy student studying in pre-war Paris. Eager to foment a revolution and having little grasp of his own motives, Rosenthal draws a small group of disciples into a conspiracy both fatuous and deadly. Simultaneously, he plunges into a forbidden – and ultimately tragic – love affair as the intertwined plots move inexorably toward their twin destinations of betrayal and death.
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Praise for THE CONSPIRACY:
‘A complex mixture of history and analysis constitutes the great value of Nizan’s book … A hard, true testimony at a time when “the Young” are forming groups and congratulating themselves, when the young man thinks he has rights because he is young.’
Jean-Paul Sartre
‘A delicate, sometimes lyrical, evocation of the atmosphere and attitudes of the late twenties … The Conspiracy is a genuine piece of literature.’
NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
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ISBN: 978 1 84467 768 9/ $16.95/£9.99/$21CAN / Paperback / 272 pages
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THE UNSEEN
By NANNI BALESTRINI
With a new introduction by ANTONIO NEGRI
Published: 16 January 2012
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For a brief explosive period in the mid-1970s, the young and the unemployed of Italy’s cities joined the workers in an unexpectedly militant movement known simply as Autonomy (Autonomia). Against the harsh austerity programmes and social discipline of the time, the movement developed a ‘politics of refusal’. Much like the wave of youthful protest that spread around the world in 2011, the movement was expressed in street protest, occupations and direct action, combined with carnivalesque creativity.
In spare but vivid prose, THE UNSEEN is a powerful and gripping novel: a rare evocation of the intensity of commitment, the passion of politics. Autonomy’s trajectory is seen through the eyes of a single working class protagonist – from high-school rebellion, squatting and attempts to set up a free radio station to arrest and the brutalities of imprisonment.
NANNI BALESTRINI, himself a victim of the repression of Autonomy, has invented a remarkable fictional form to express the hopes and conflicts of the movement. Along with UMBERTO ECO and EDUARDO SANGUINETI, Balestrini was part of the influential experimental avant-garde writers’ movement ‘Gruppo 63’, which challenged and rejected the values of contemporary society.
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Praise for THE UNSEEN:
‘The unseen of yesterday are the proletarians of today … this book has anticipated reality and transformed the real.’
Antonio Negri
‘The first true novel of the European Left.’
LIBÉRATION
‘Lucid, poetic, unforgettable.’
LA STAMPA
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ISBN: 978 1 84467 767 2 / $16.95/£9.99/$21CAN/ Paperback / 256 pages
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For more information about THE CONSPIRACY and THE UNSEEN, or to buy the book visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/1034-the-conspiracy or http://www.versobooks.com/books/1033-the-unseen
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Academics can request an inspection copy. For further information please go to: http://www.versobooks.com/pg/desk-copies
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