“Thomas the Dark” looks like a novel, but it’s not. Blanchot manages to merge philosophy and literature

In his first work, the French intellectual shows his dual nature as a philosopher and writer. The book is the prelude to something and in it, the language used becomes the simulacrum of absence

Published by Gallimard in 1941, hitherto unpublished in Italy, Thomas the Darkthe first novel by Maurice Blanchotis now in the bookstore (il Saggiatore, transl. Francesco Fogliotti, 144 pp.). The figure of Blanchot, French philosopher and writer, friend, among others, of Bataille, Lévinas and Derrida, was decisive for the reflection on the literature of the twentieth century, and beyond. In him philosophy and literature complement each other. This book is a prime example of that.