• 06.07.2023.
• Zagreb, HR

New title – „Life Behind You. Purposes of Literature“

Our author Antoine Compagnon's book Life Behind You. Purposes of Literature, translated by Marko Maras, has just been published.

For his last lecture at the Collège de France, Antoine Compagnon indulged in the final reflection on literature, art, music through a kaleidoscope of the word „end“. But what are the „ends of literature“? Does this mean that the writer has to stop his creative activity or should we understand that word in terms of creative twilight? Is the artist more creative in youth or in adulthood? Is old age a decline or an apotheosis?

Through examples from antiquity to the present day Antoine Compagnon brings our civilization’s thinking about age. These new lessons and lectures continue this meditation on the end, the outcome, the age, the state of the senile, but also the sublime, on the ultima verba, the swan song, the second occasion, the eternal poet. Maurice Blanchot, quoting Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who quoted Djalâl ad-Dîn Rûmî, writes: „He who knows the power of the circle is not afraid of death.“ This book is not really a lecture, but a wandering odyssey.

Read more about the book here.