Name: The Unnamable Present
SKU: 54933449
Price: 20.66 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Roberto Calasso

Type

Physical Book

Author

Roberto Calasso

Translated by

Richard Dixon

Publisher

Picador

Language

English

Pages

208

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

21.8x14x1.5 cm

Weight

0.25 kg.

ISBN13

9781250251213

Synopsis "The Unnamable Present"

A decisive key to help grasp some of the essential points of what is happening around us. The ninth part of Roberto Calasso's masterwork, The Unnamable Present, is closely connected with themes of the first book, The Ruin of Kasch (originally published in 1983, and reissued by FSG in a new translation). But while Kasch is an enlightened exploration of modernity, The Unnamable Present propels us into the twenty first century. Tourists, terrorists, secularists, fundamentalists, hackers, transhumanists, algorithmicians: these are all tribes that inhabit the unnamable present and act on its nervous system. This is a world that seems to have no living past, but was foreshadowed in the period between 1933 and 1945, when everything appeared bent on self-annihilation. The Unnamable Present is a meditation on the obscure and ubiquitous process of transformation happening today in all societies, which makes so many previous names either inadequate or misleading or a parody of what they used to mean. Translated with sensitivity by Calasso's longtime translator, Richard Dixon, The Unnamable Present is a strikingly original and provocative vision of our times, from the writer The Paris Review called "a literary institution of one."

Roberto Calasso

(Author)

View Author's Page

Roberto Calasso (1941-2021) was an Italian writer, editor, and essayist known for his erudition and narrative style that blends mythology, history, and literature. His most famous work is The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1988), an essay-novel about Greek mythology. Among his notable books are also Ka (1996), focused on Hindu tradition, Literature and the Gods (2001) and The Book of All Books (2019), which reinterprets biblical texts from a literary and philosophical perspective.

His literary production, often classified within the essay and philosophical narrative, explores the history of culture and its symbols. In addition to his work as an author, he was the director of Adelphi publishing house, influencing the literary world with his publications and translations.

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