Awaiting Oblivion

Book excerpt: "Another of Blanchot's almost-fictions . . . throwing into deliciously baffling high relief the enigmatic condition of a man and woman alone in a sparsely furnished hotel room who try to remember what has happened to bring them there as they apprehensively await whatever will happen next. Their reserved confusion and quiet desperation eventually impress upon them (and us) the realization that imagination (or, if you will, writing) can create reality - and offer the paradoxical solace that seems to rest at the heart of Blanchot's writing: the sense that even language that expresses meaninglessness can't help but contain and, therefore, convey meaning." - Kirkus. "This absolutely first-rate translation will not only make Blanchot accessible to many new readers but will also encourage Blanchot scholars and students to reconsider everything they thought they knew about L'Attente l'oubli. . . . This book should be required reading, period." - Choice. "Awaiting Oblivion is one of [Blanchot's] crowning works . . . a penetrating reflection upon human nature, language, and literature.""-Translation Review. ""Blanchot is a terrifying writer.""-Review of Contemporary Fiction. Maurice Blanchot has been for a half century one of France's leading authors of fiction and theory. Two of his most ambitious nonfiction works, The Space of Literature and The Writing of the Disaster, are also available from the University of Nebraska Press, as is The Most High, his third novel. John Gregg is the author of Maurice Blanchot and the Literature of Transgression.